Warlock Maltworms & Milkmaids –Capriol Suite; Serenade (to Frederick Delius on his sixtieth birthday); An Old Song; As ever I saw; Mr Belloc’s Fancy; Captain Stratton’s Fancy; Little Trotty Wagtail etc Nadine Benjamin, Ben McAteer; BBC Singers; BBC Concert Orchestra/David Hill EM Records EMRCD080 73:52 mins
An impromptu collaborative effort between EJ Moeran and Peter Warlock plus an irredeemably cheerful setting in folksong style by the latter secure the eye-catching title of an album whose subtitle – Warlock and the Orchestra – is at one level perhaps a touch misleading. True every track presents the composer sporting instrumental finery ranging from strings, via brass chorus, to the full orchestral monty, but of 17 world-premiere recordings, well over half involve orchestrations by others. No matter, with a surfeit of ‘ho diddle-dos’ and ‘hi tronny-nos’ in prospect, a sugar rush is skilfully sidestepped thanks to some adroit programming that leavens the ‘merry England’ period charm with strategically-placed antidotes. Among them are the single movement Serenade, a 60th birthday present to Delius, pre-eminently thoughtful rather than celebratory, and ‘An Old Song’, a brooding tone poem in miniature, Delian in both its colouring and harmonic language.
Among the 20-plus songs and vocal numbers, ‘Sorrow’s Lullaby’ is a plangent dialogue for soprano, baritone, and string quartet (here the strings expanded in number). It supplies a sombre upbeat to the opulently scored (and vivaciously executed), ‘One More River’. Indeed, the star of the album is Ben McAteer whose agreeably lyrical baritone can effortlessly muster plenty of much-called-upon swagger and suggestive tongue-in-cheekery. And while David Hill shapes ‘An Old Song’ with supple affection, the better-known Capriol Suite - given in its full-orchestral respray rather than the arrangement for strings – proves disappointingly low key and under-characterised – a warlock minus the scintillating wizardry.
Paul Riley