British mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately continues her mission to rehabilitate the music of a generation of neglected female composers. Hot on the heels of outstanding albums exploring Rebecca Clarke (the complete songs, no less) and Madeleine Dring (a Limelight Recording of the Month), comes a disc of lesser-known songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams and others by two of the women, later friends, he mentored and inspired: Elizabeth Maconchy and Grace Williams.

First of all, this is a most sensitively curated collection, where poetry takes pride of place alongside music, most of which is deeply reflective and highly lyrical. Every song plays to Whateley’s strengths: her ability to spin a melody, her gift for phrasing and breath control, and most of all an instinct for text that inexorably draws the listener in. Her burnished mezzo-soprano floats and soars, now bright, now hushed, telling her tales of love, occasionally loss, and the permeable boundary between the spiritual and the natural world. William Vann proves an ideal accompanist, cleanly articulate and effortlessly poetic, lending Whately ample support and plenty of room to explore the words.

The Vaughan Williams songs, among his less well-known, but each a gem, span 50 years, from 1908’s The Sky Above the Roof, a spare, yet radiant setting of Verlaine to the so-called Four Last Songs, composed between 1954 and 1958. The latter, settings of poetry by his second wife Ursula, are profoundly touching, especially Tired, in which the poet reflects on the sleeping composer’s face dappled with firelight. The Four Poems of Fredegond Shove from 1925 are equally distinguished. Whately is peerless in the evocative Motion and Stillness and proves a most affecting storyteller in The New Ghost, in which a soul leaves the body. Ditto The Water Mill with its wryly drawn human family and playful tabby.

Maconchy (“Darling Betty” to RVW) seems to be heard more often these days, and the songs here will only add to her burgeoning reputation. The expressive In Fountain Court shows the influence of her teacher, as does her gorgeous setting of Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s The Woodspurge, a perfect foil for Vaughan Williams’ setting of Silent Noon. She also proves an excellent setter of Shakespeare, including Ophelia’s Song (“How should I your true love know”) and the light-hearted King Stephen from Othello. Whately and Vann are musical soulmates plumbing the dark intensity of The Exequy.

Williams (RVW’s “Dearest Grace”) is represented here by her 1969 song cycle Billows of the Sea, four salty tales that play into the Welsh composer’s lifelong fascination with the ocean. These are fine works, composed in Williams’ characteristic musical voice (if you know her other work, the language is immediately recognisable). Rosabelle, a setting of Sir Walter Scott, is an eerie border ballad, mined by Whately for every spook-haunted detail. Sweet and Low is a melancholy lullaby setting Tennyson’s familiar prayer to the western wind, while The Lowlands of Holland is another grisly ballad of lives lost at sea. Her setting of John Gay’s Black-eyed Susan tells of faithful lovers united and then forced to part on the deck of a ship bound for foreign parts. Whately and Vann run the gamut here in a narrative tour de force.

Writing to Williams, Maconchy, who referred to their teacher as “Uncle Ralph,” expressed her growing respect for him as “a pioneer”. “If it hadn’t been for him, where would we all have been?” she said. This album is not just a testament to enduring friendships across the generations, it’s a tribute to the fine art of songwriting.

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Title: Mentor and Muse
Works: Songs by Vaughan Williams, Maconchy and Williams
Performers: Kitty Whately ms, William Vann p
Label: Albion Records ALBCD069
★★★★½