PURCELL SINGERS. ENGLISH FOLK-SONG, (arr. Vaughan Williams). Just as the tide was flowing. The captain's apprentice. The lark in the morning. An acre of land. The unquiet grave; The carter. As I walked out. On Christmas night. Six studies in English folk-song for viola and piano: Lovely on the water; Spurn Point; Van Dieman's Land; She borrowed some of her mother's gold; The lady and the dragoon; As I walked over London Bridge. Dives and Lazarus. The cuckoo and the nightingale. Bushes and briars. Wassail song. Purcell Singers, Rosamond Strode (soprano), Patrick Shuldham Shaw (baritone), Jean Stewart (viola), Daphne Ibbott (piano). World Record Club Ca CM46: 0 SCM46 (12 in., 26s. 6d. incl. PT.). World Record Club, Parkbridge House, The Little Green, Richmond, Surrey.

This is folk music in sympathetic but by no means strictly traditional arrangements presented without pretence, posturing or preciousness. The Purcell Singers, founded in 1953 by Imogen Hoist, specialize in old music. Pat Shuldham Shaw may be said to have been born to folk music—his mother was a founder member of The English Folk-Song Society and he is a collector as well as a singer. Jean Stewart played for Vaughan Williams at the Leith Hill Festivals while still a student and was viola player in the Menges Quartet. Rosamond Strode is the leading soprano of the Purcell Singers, other members of which also sing solos.

The Six Studies in English folk-song were originally written for 'cello and piano in 1927, with alternative versions for violin, viola or clarinet. They have a charm of their own. Particularly do I like Van Dieman's Land. About half of the songs are sung by the choir unaccompanied and others by solo voice with piano accompaniment, but one, Bushes and briars, the first folk-song to be collected by Vaughan Williams, is for tenor unaccompanied and sung with the free rhythm of the traditional singer. Most of the songs were collected in East Anglia but Vaughan Williams found the Wassail Song in a village in South Yorkshire within half a dozen miles or so of where I was born. In the fifth verse there is a reference to "mouldy cheese" and in their admirable sleeve-note Mrs. Vaughan Williams and Miss Hoist suggest that this was probably stilton. So it may have been, but I prefer to think that it was Wensleydale! Other favourites of mine include the tragic Captain's apprentice, the bright and lively Lark in the morning and The carter, telling of the friendship between horse and man. And what a lovely tune Dives and Lazarus is. It was one of Vaughan Williams's favourites. A very desirable and well-varied selection the recording of which in mono is excellent. I have not heard the stereo version.