Delius: Songs

Delius's unique compositional language is expressed in these lyrical and beautiful songs. The magical twilit world of the Scandinavian poets is explored in Norwegian and Danish settings admired by Grieg. English songs on Elizabethan texts written in exile during the first world war have a characteristic sense of fading beauty and regret.

'These attractive songs are the music of a passionate young romantic … There are faint echoes of Grieg and Wagner, even, in a group of delicately atmospheric Verlaine settings, and also of Fauré and Chausson. Yet so distinctive was Delius's sinuous harmonic style that even the simplest song could be by no one else … Yvonne Kenny is, as ever, a scrupulous, sensitive artist, always alive to mood and character. She vividly catches the bardic desolation of Twilight Fancies, the sensuality of In the Garden of the Seraglio and the wayward charm of The Nightingale Has a Lyre of Gold. Her poised, soft singing is heard to beautiful effect in the Verlaine songs, and in an exquisite setting of Ben Jonson's So white, so soft, so sweet is she' (The Daily Telegraph)