SING ENGLISH SONG

A Practical Approach to the Language and the Repertoire

STEPHEN VARCOE's book
is reviewed by RODERIC DUNNETT

How many singers, amateur or professional, native English-speaking or no, long for a handy, easily approachable handbook, written in intelligible language by someone who understands the problems encountered in singing English song?

Stephen Varcoe, whose recitals of music by British composers (as well as German Lieder and French mélodie) have given huge pleasure to audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, has written the kind of book worth queueing up to buy.

Professional singers with an interest in English songs, both high and low voice, will be glad of Varcoe's useful overview (not comprehensive, but with the potential for growing into that) of England's verse-setters, whose achievements have long been undervalued -- both in and beyond what was once disparagingly termed Das Land ohne Musik : the nation devoid of music.

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