"I Have Lived & Loved" (Albion Records 2025) is the Vocal Choice in the November issue of BBC Music Magazine.
Here is Terry Blain's review:
"Individual songs from Vaughan Williams's Songs of Travel have been performed by female voices before, but this is, it seems, the first time the complete cycle has been recorded by a woman.
Kathryn Rudge is the singer in question, and she makes an instantly engaging impression in 'The Vagabond', her lush mezzo-soprano voice combining with immaculate diction and intelligent use of dynamics to clarify meaning. Rudge's 'I Have Trod the Upward and the Downward Slope' is another highlight, the singer-narrator movingly undepleted despite life's manifold trials and disappointments.
Tenor Alessandro Fisher joins Rudge for a group of nine Percy Grainger settings. Bold and ringing in 'Dedication II' and 'A Reiver's Neck-Verse', Fisher combines memorably with Rudge in a heartfelt rendition of the vocalise 'Up-Country Song'. He also contributes three songs from Vaughan Williams's operas as well as two attractive settings by the little-known English composer John Raynor.
Rudge also has two rarities up her sleeve, by the Australian composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks. She finds a soothing vein of tenderness in 'Come Sleep', before opening full throttle in the next track, 'How Soon Will All My Lovely Days Be Over', an aria from Glanville-Hicks's unstaged opera Sappho.
Penelope Thwaites's accompaniments are worth mentioning; they are
a model of unobtrusive supportiveness and sensitivity. The excellent booklet notes are hers too, and they bring added value to this stimulating, impressively sung recital."
Available here: I Have Lived and Loved
Plans for this recital began as a comparison of the extent to which folk music influenced the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams and that of his contemporary and friend, Percy Grainger.
The album begins with the first complete recording by a woman of Vaughan Williams's cycle of nine songs: Songs of Travel. There is ample historical evidence for women both singing and recording these songs, from Ada Crossley under Sir Henry Wood in 1910 to later singers such as Dame Janet Baker, but the cycle has been a male preserve until now. We are proud to present Kathryn Rudge's pioneering recording, accompanied by the Australian pianist Penelope Thwaites.
Alessandro Fisher sings three songs from Vaughan Williams's operas. We then hear two songs from Vaughan Williams's former pupil, Peggy Glanville-Hicks(another Australian) and two from John Raynor - a composer for whom Vaughan Williams once sponsored a concert, but whose music has not been recorded until now.
https://albionrecs.lnk.to/ALBCD066