Songs of Travel (1904) - Vaughan Wiliams

Joe Browne's recital in the John Field Room on Friday had an old-fashioned air. Vaughan Williams's song cycle sets words from the 1890s by Robert Louis Stevenson - who surely deserved a mention in the programme - and the music is beginning to sound as dated as the words. Great care is needed to prevent the work sounding like a museum piece and the rival claims of words and music must be delicately balanced.

The singer appeared to be more interested in displaying the richness of his voice than in conveying the emotions of the cycle. Words that are difficult to sing - like "thick" - were slurred, final r's tended to disappear, high noted were unnecessarily loud and the vibrato was sufficiently loud to obscure the quality of the vowels. Special effects, like allowing the voice to dwindle into nothing at the end of a line, called attention to themselves rather than the music.

It was only in the simpler, most rhythmic songs such as The Vagabond and Home no more home to me, whither must I wander? that Browne and his accompanist, Peter Devine, evaded the trap of turning songs into something like vocalises.