James Geer & Ronald Woodley – Maconchy & Vaughan Williams: Songs, Volume 1 (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

The first of two releases to mark the 150th anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s birth presents two of his major song collections, while bringing to light a substantial number of songs by the composer’s student Elizabeth Maconchy. Her works here are almost all unpublished and virtually unknown since their original first performances from manuscript, and span several decades of the composer’s career from the time of her studies with Vaughan Williams in the mid-1920s though to her committed espousal of the British modernist aesthetic by the 1960s and 70s.

The songs are performed by tenor James Geer and pianist Ronald Woodley in this continuation of their long-standing partnership.

Tracklist:
1-01. James Geer – Songs of Travel: I. The Vagabond (03:14)
1-02. James Geer – Songs of Travel: II. Let Beauty Awake (02:05)
1-03. James Geer – Songs of Travel: III. The Roadside Fire (02:35)
1-04. James Geer – Songs of Travel: IV. Youth and Love (03:46)
1-05. James Geer – Songs of Travel: V. In Dreams (03:02)
1-06. James Geer – Songs of Travel: VI. The Infinite Shining Heavens (02:08)
1-07. James Geer – Songs of Travel: VII. Whither Must I Wander? (04:16)
1-08. James Geer – Songs of Travel: VIII. Bright is the Ring of Words (02:09)
1-09. James Geer – Songs of Travel: VIII. I Have Trod the Upward and the Downward Slope (02:18)
1-10. James Geer – Love Stood At My Door (05:47)
1-11. James Geer – The Bee-Sting (02:02)
1-12. James Geer – The Woodspurge (03:53)
1-13. James Geer – The Cloths of Heaven (01:47)
1-14. James Geer – The Thrush (02:28)
1-15. James Geer – Impetuous Heart, Be Still (01:57)
1-16. James Geer – Four Poems by Fredegond Shove: I. Motion and Stillness (01:38)
1-17. James Geer – Four Poems by Fredegond Shove: II. Four Nights (03:25)
1-18. James Geer – Four Poems by Fredegond Shove: III. The New Ghost (05:10)
1-19. James Geer – Four Poems by Fredegond Shove: IV. The Water Mill (03:46)
1-20. James Geer – Faustus (08:35)