Hyperion Records
Click album cover image to view the sleeve notes
CDA67168

Buy? £13.99

Recording details: October 1999
All Saints, Durham Road, East Finchley, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Antony Howell & Julian Millard
Release date: September 2000
Total duration: 66 minutes 26 seconds
Available for download on iTunes: Yes

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GRAMOPHONE CRITICS' CHOICE

'John Mark Ainsley's performance is among his best on record in these austerely beautiful, imaginatively scored settings' (Gramophone)

'John Mark Ainsley’s voice has exactly the right timbre for this music. First-rate. A most desirable disc. Very strongly recommended' (Fanfare, USA)

'Superbly sung. A warm recommendation' (International Record Review)

'Hyperion could have no better champion here than John Mark Ainsley. With beautifully sensitive playing from the Nash Ensemble, his clean, mellifluous tenor draws us in to the hidden riches of this marvellous music' (Amazon.co.uk)

'It would be hard to find an interpreter more beautifully suited to the Blake Songs than John Mark Ainsley' (BBC Music Magazine)

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Songs
John Mark Ainsley (tenor), The Nash Ensemble
Merciless Beauty
1
No 1: Your eyën two  [2:35]
2
No 2: So hath your beauty  [2:35]
3
No 3: Since I from love  [1:12]
Two English Folksongs
4
No 1: Searching for lambs 'As I went out one May morning'  [2:40]
5
No 2: The Lawyer 'A lawyer he went out one day'  [1:42]
Ten Blake Songs
6
No 01: Infant Joy 'I have no name: I am but two days old'  [1:21]
7
No 02: A Poison Tree 'I was angry with my friend'  [2:18]
8
No 03: The Piper 'Piping down the valleys wild'  [2:04]
9
No 04: London 'I wander thro' each charter'd street'  [1:48]
10
No 05: The Lamb  [2:40]
11
No 06: The Shepherd  [0:59]
12
No 07: Ah, Sun-flower  [1:23]
13
No 08: Cruelty has a human heart  [1:50]
14
No 09: The Divine Image 'To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love'  [2:14]
15
No 10: Eternity 'He who binds himself with joy'  [1:36]
Along the Field
16
No 1: We'll to the woods no more  [1:31]
17
No 2: Along the field  [2:55]
18
No 3: The half-moon westers low  [1:31]
19
No 4: In the morning  [1:04]
20
No 5: The sign that heaves the grasses  [2:12]
21
No 6: Good-bye 'Oh see how thick the goldcup flowers'  [2:07]
22
No 7: Fancy's Knell 'When lads were home from labour'  [3:13]
23
No 8: With rue my heart is laden  [1:26]
On Wenlock Edge
24
No 1: On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble  [3:36]
25
No 2: From far, from eve and morning  [2:12]
26
No 3: Is my team ploughing?  [3:48]
27
No 4: Oh, when I was in love with you  [0:36]
28
No 5: Bredon Hill 'In summertime on Bredon'  [7:36]
29
No 6: Clun 'In valleys of springs of rivers'  [3:42]
Star tenor John Mark Ainsley joins The Nash Ensemble in a programme of the principal instrumentally-accompanied songs of Vaughan Williams: the Ten Blake Songs with solo oboe, the three Chaucer settings called Merciless Beauty for 2 violins and cello, the eight Housman settings known as Along the Field, and of course On Wenlock Edge (also Housman) with piano and string quartet. There are also two folksong settings for voice and violin, The Lawyer and Searching for lambs.

This recording joins John Mark's distinguished and growing Hyperion discography of English song after CDs devoted to Britten, Howells, Ireland, Quilter, Warlock and William Lloyd Webber.