MORLEY. Songs. Can I forget what reason's force ; Fair in a morn ; It was a lover and his lass ; Mistress mine, well may you fare. Rene Soames (tenor), Walter Gerwig (lute). Johannes Koch (viola da gamba), D.G.G. Archive EPA37097 (7 in., 16s.

My colleague, Arthur Jacobs, in his Passing Notes for the July issue of THE GRAMOPHONE, could not resist a shudder when he heard the phrase "microphonewise". Like many present Americanisms, its origins can be found in Elizabethan English : for instance, in the preface to his Canzonets arranged for voice and lute (1597) Thomas Morley says that he has presented the lower parts in a new form—"tablaturewise for the lute"—so that the top part can be sung as a solo with lute accompaniment. This publication met with such success that Morley followed it up with The First Book of Airs with little short songs to sing and play to the lute with the bass viol. Issued in 1600 in a fairly small printing, copies soon became scarce, and at the moment only one (alas, imperfect) copy is known to exist.

Rene Soames sings four of these songs, with the appropriate accompaniment, in his own inimitable way, and I can think of no better introduction (and no cheaper !) than this attractive EP. It is a perfect partner to the disc, made by the same team, of music by Dowland and Danyel. Gerwig and Koch are both excellent artists, though I could sometimes wish they were not so inflexible rhythmically. Even Rene Soames appears at times to have succumbed to the rather four-square strictness of metre, nevertheless, the diction on this disc is perfect. D.S.