An Invaluable Recording The complete solo songs of E J Moeran - heard by PATRIC STANDFORD '... beautifully sung ...'

Moeran's dual national allegiances (and personality, for that matter) vacillated between the East Anglia of his childhood and the land of his father's birth, Ireland, where he spent the closing years of his relatively short life (he died in 1950 at fifty-six), escaping whenever possible to the village of Kenmare in County Kerry. This collection, timed well to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of his tragic death, excludes the folksong arrangements, of which there are many between Norfolk and Kerry, to focus purely on the solo songs, though even then there may be some missing -- one of which is his earliest known song The North Sea Ground written in 1915, discovered only ten years ago and not available to the performers at the time of this recording.

One English poet to which Moeran turned often was A E Housman, and there are eleven settings included in this recital, including three versions of No 20 from 'A Shropshire Lad': Oh fair enough are sky and plain, none of which were published during the composer's lifetime. Loveliest of trees dates from the same year (1931). The earlier cycle of four songs, Ludlow Town, comprise the earliest Housman settings, dating from 1920, and there were two more in 1925 -- 'Tis time, I think, by Wenlock Town and Far in a western brookland, all beautifully sung by Roderick Williams...

E J MOERAN

A E HOUSMAN

RODERICK WILLIAMS

ADRIAN THOMPSON

CHANDOS RECORDS

UNITED KINGDOM

IRELAND