Our April Recording of the Month features Kitty Whately in a beautifully curated program of songs by the British composer Madeleine Dring (Chandos CHAN20390).

Dring’s sudden death in 1977 at the age of 53 cut short a life of composing, arranging, singing and acting; and a career feeding off the energy of tight deadlines. Centuries earlier, she might have been praised as a polymath, but in the 20th century she fell outside acceptable classical parameters. British mezzo-soprano Whately and pianist Julius Drake are the latest to take up Dring’s cause, presenting material from across the composer’s wide stylistic range on their album Through the Centuries – Songs of Madeleine Dring.

“American commentators have compared Dring to Gershwin,” writes an enthusiastic Alexandra Coghlan, “but the English lineage of a musician taught by both Howells and Vaughan Williams is immediately evident, even if the influences fall more into the groove between popular and classical styles: Quilter, Novello, Coward.”

“Whately is an expressive singer, and her performances have all the intimacy of an after-dinner recital around the piano,” she continues. “Drake’s accompaniments fit like a silk opera...