A Shropshire Lad - Three Song Cycles to poems of A.E. Housman - Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge / Gurney: Ludlow and Teme; The Western Playland

English music at its best. The Song Cycles with quartet and piano accompaniment are beautifully sung and played with the excellent Stephen Varcoe singing the lesser known Gurney Western Playland. Both Stephen Varcoe and Adrian Thompson relish Housman's poems and their diction - so important in these songs - is exemplary. It is an excellent Hyperion recording giving space and detail to the music.