The Open Door

Lorna Windsor (Soprano)

William Hancox (Piano)

This CD of English songs contains a pot-pourri of excellence in a genre that has gone slightly out of fashion, but remains a source of splendid repertoire for any young singer. I confess to not knowing any of the songs on this disc, nor indeed many of the composers, but I was immediately pulled into the world of slightly abstract and wispy poetry that these composers have set. That was largely due to the intelligent and insightful interpretations of Lorna Windsor and William Hancox. I was at music college with Lorna some years ago, but have not heard her voice for some time. Like mine, her instrument is not in the first flush of youth, but with age comes maturity, and a deeper understanding of the way words and music fit together. Her voice still retains an exquisite top register, and many of these songs explore that part of the voice intensively. The miracle is that she is  able to enunciate the words clearly, even in the stratosphere, and since many of the poems are obscure and translated from various ancient languages, that is a welcome boon.

Peter Warlock and Ernest Moeran are the only composers of the old school, as it were, to feature on the disc, and even they were seen as anachronistic in the brave new world of modernism which swept music in the early 20th century.

I was particularly taken with the songs of Carey Blyton, who I discovered from the sleeve notes was a professor of composition when Lorna and I were at the Guildhall School of Music. That aspect of music was lost on me at the time, as I was involved solely in performance, but I found his songs on this disc very attractive. The first group are settings of a mixed bag of poets, including William Blake’s eerie, The Sick Rose, and the second group reflect Blyton’s interest in the Orient, and were written only two years before he died in 2002.

The interesting sleeve notes were written by Peter Thompson, who was a contemporary of Lorna and myself at Guildhall. His setting of A Red Red Rose by Burns is very beautiful, and should be better known. Throughout the disc, the accompaniment by William Hancox is perfectly judged and the recording quality is excellent. You can find the CD on Willowhayne Records, and I recommend you have a listen.

photo credit: Giulia Di Vitantonio