GURNEY / IRELAND / VENABLES / FINZI

Love’s Voice

Includes world premiere recordings

Paul Plummer, piano

Nathan Vale, tenor

Ivor Gurney: On Wenlock Edge; Bread & cherries; Down by the Salley Gardens; Ha’nacker Mill; Snow; Hawk & Buckle

John Ireland: Friendship in misfortune; The three ravens; The trellis; The Land of Lost Content

Ian Venables: Love’s Voice; Vitae summa brevis op.3 No.3; Flying crooked op.28, No.1; At midnight op.28, No.2; The Hippo

Gerald Finzi: Oh Fair to

See Nathan Vale was born in Stourbridge and was a chorister at Hereford Cathedral – he currently studies at the Benjamin Britten Opera School with Ryland Davies. He is the 2006 winner of the London Handel Singing competition, where he was also awarded the audience prize. Recent appearances at Glyndebourne and the Royal Festival Hall have made him increasingly in demand.

“…Vale and his accomplished colleague Paul Plummer start with an unpublished song by Gurney, the spirited, stirring On Wenlock Edge with a grand tune…Immediately one is made aware of Vale’s clarity of tone, a clarity matched by that of the recording…As satisfying as he is in the liveliness of On Wenlock Edge, he is equally so in Down by the Salley gardens, which he sings with a touch of regret…He also conveys the sadness of Edward Thomas’s poem snow…” John T Hughes, IRR

“One could scarcely ask for a more representative selection of the essence of true Englishness in song and poetry than this disc, beautifully sung by Nathan Vale, a tenor of expressive range…Quite ravishingly beautiful.” Colin Scott-Sutherland, Musicweb International

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