On Wenlock Edge / Piano Quintet / etc

"Listening to this fine new release and revisiting the comparative versions of On Wenlock Edge - sheer indulgence! - I'm struck by the excellence of all of them...this new Chandos disc is an outstanding release and admirers of Vaughan Williams can invest with complete confidence."
(MusicWeb Sept 2008)

Published in 1909, On Wenlock Edge is a song cycle for tenor, piano and string quartet, setting six poems from A.E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad. Although there have been a number of recordings of this song cycle recently, this disc has the remarkable voice of Mark Padmore. It also has an unusual coupling in the early Piano Quintet in C minor, written for the same instruments as Schubert's 'Trout' Quintet. Two brief lyric pieces for violin and piano complete the disc. Celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary year, the Schubert Ensemble here make its first recording on Chandos. Fanfare recently wrote, 'The Schubert Ensemble are exactly what the music requires - they fizzle with energy and pep.'