Day of These Days: The British Isles Reflected in Song

Britten This way to the tomb; On This Island, Op. 11: No. 4, Nocturne; Sally Beamish Day of These Days;Judith Weir Sonnet 116; Purcell By beauteous softness; Full fathom five; Bridge: Thy hand in mine, H. 124; Come to Me in my Dreams; Adoration, H. 57; O'Regan: Three Motion Settings; Richard Sisson: The Silver Swan Huw Watkins, H: Look Down, Fair Moon; MacRae I know not how it is with you (from songs of Travel); MacMillan Scots Song;Trad There’s none to soothe; Wallen My Feet May Take a Little While.

Tristan Hambleton (bass-baritone), Simon Lepper (piano)
Delphian DCD34359
https://www.delphianrecords.com/

"Such a morning it is," wrote Laurie Lee, and this quietly beautiful album, taking its title from his poem, is rooted in just such particular moments of lived experience — fleeting, introspective, and suffused with that peculiarly British quality of light. Bass-baritone Tristan Hambleton and pianist Simon Lepper have assembled a landscape of song by Britten, Sally Beamish, Judith Weir, Huw Watkins, Tarik O'Regan, Errollyn Wallen and others, many receiving their first recordings here, drawn together by themes of time, loss and uncertain footing.

This is not an album that reaches for display. Voice and piano search instead for connection – a meditation on being and on what it means, in Robert Louis Stevenson's words, "to know not how it is with you". Musically, the songs reflect the uncertainty of the poetry, tilting towards the melancholic: slow metres, minor keys and the naturally dark, sometimes foreboding weight of the bass-baritone register. Around half the songs have been transposed to accommodate the lower voice, the remainder sung in their original keys.

Hambleton's clarity of tone is a consistent pleasure throughout. Britten's This Way to the Tomb is particularly striking, Lepper's accompaniment percussive and alive to Hambleton's phrasing. Richard Sisson's The Silver Swan is a delight, and Stuart Macrae's I Know Not How It Is with You sits at the album's emotional heart. In Huw Watkins's contributions we hear the full expressive range of Hambleton's voice, while Sally Beamish's Day of These Days — brief but telling — captures Laurie Lee's words with quiet precision, Hambleton's lower register particularly effective. The album's most elegant moment may be Thomas Adès's arrangement of Purcell's By Beauteous Softness, sung with real poise.

Delphian's recording team have done their customary excellent work, the sound beautifully suited to the intimate nature of the material, even if the cover design feels less assured than one might expect from this label.

A rewarding and thoughtful recital.