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Vaughan Williams - James Gilchrist - The Sunday Times

The programming is the most attractive feature of this likeable disc. Using Vaughan Williams's celebrated cycle On Wenlock Edge as the album's title, Gilchrist follows it with Peter Warlock's The Curlew and, even rarer, Ivor Gurney's Ludlow and Teme, adding an Elegiac Sonnet by Arthur Bliss for good measure. These quintessentially English songs make good record companions because of their instrumental scoring, but in On Wedlock Edge, the instrumentation sometimes makes Gilchrist force the natural lyric colouring of his light tenor, and his tone sounds pinched. The songs are beautiful, however, and it's good to have new recordings of the Gurney and Bliss.

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The Sunday Times
29 July 2007