We started with a tribute to the Transport Forecast with each singers in Ronald Binge’s Crusing By, an instrumental model of which is performed on the radio earlier than the forecast itself; charming and really redolent of the parlour. Simon Butteriss studying of the forecast itself was punctuated by three songs, every referring to one of many areas talked about. Jess Dandy actually invested in The Waters of Tyne, a conventional tune in a really art-song association by René Atkinson, then Gareth Brynmor John swaggered properly in Ivor Gurney’s Thomas Hardy setting, The Night time of Trafalgar, an early tune slightly redolent of Peter Warlock. Lastly the 2 soloists joined collectively for Flanders and Swann’s Rockall, their deadpan supply and terrific diction taking advantage of the work’s pleasant double entendre.

Ships and Sailors started with Michael Head’s The Ships of Arcady with Dandy giving us a stunning line allied to wealthy, targeted tone, then John was swaggering once more in Head’s A Canine’s Life, however investing within the touching moments too. Noel Coward’s Has anyone seen our ship (first sung by Coward himself with Gertrude Lawrence within the evaluate Tonight at 8:30) featured the 2 singers in fairly a critical tackle the tune which was humorous as a result of so deadpan. John returned to the ocean chanty type with some real Warlock, the terrific ode to rum that’s Captain Stratton’s Fancy, then Dandy gave us John Eire’s Sea Fever, her wealthy tone mixed with a really feel for Masefield’s poetry to carry out the work’s lyric melancholy.

Nights by the Sea featured John in Delius’ Summer time Nights, wealthy romanticism and a component of mystic rhapsody that, at occasions, did not fairly sound like Delius in any respect. Then Dandy in Sea Slumber Music from Elgar’s Sea Photos, Dandy’s spectacular contralto voice returning us to a sound world on this tune that Elgar would have recognised, and the model with piano giving a contact extra intimacy.

There was additional Elgar, as Dandy continued with The place Corals lie from Sea Photos, for the part on The Magic and Thriller of the Sea. Right here Foster drew out the participating dance-like component to the accompaniment, complementing Dandy’s lyrical vocals. Then John gave us one other Hardy setting, this time The Phantom Horesewoman by up to date composer Martin Bussey. A fancy but tonal work that was a splendidly efficient free arioso. The primary half ended with Jess Dandy in Rebecca Clarke’s The Seal Man (setting extra John Masefield). Dandy gave us actually intent storytelling, transferring from spine-tingling intimacy to the quasi-operatic.

The second half started with The Lure of the Sea, pairing John Glover-Sort’s delightfully suggestive Oh, I do prefer to be beside the seaside with Julian Philips’ Emily Dickinson setting, Ah Ev’rywhere of Silver from Philips’ Swift Partitions (a tune cycle that Foster premiered in 1998). This gave us an evocative, mysterious piano complementing John’s sensuous, intense vocal line.

Divided by the Sea paired Steven Mark Kohn’s conventional tune association, Ten Thousand Miles Away, with John bringing out the artwork tune components in Kohn’s association, with one other conventional tune, this time organized by pianist Gerald Moore, Blow the Wind Southerly. This was memorably related to Kathleen Ferrier, right here Jess Dandy was critical and really a lot herself.

Homeward Sure started with Stanford’s Homeward Sure from Songs of the Sea. John and Foster introduced out the poetry of the tune and the stunning complexity. Then Dandy sang Michael Head’s The Estuary, leaving the tweeness of Head’s The Ships of Arcady behind to provide us one thing the place time appeared suspended, transferring slowly in the direction of dignified rapture. 

The ultimate part was The Embrace of the Sea which featured two extra Emily Dickinson settings from Julian Philips’ Swift Partitions sung by John. The waters chased him was intense and slightly disturbing while My river runs to thee was impulsive with nearly jazz-like rhythms because it moved to an intense climax. Between these, Dandy gave a robust, unusual and mysterious account of Full Fathom 5 from Tippett’s Songs for Ariel (written for an Previous Vic manufacturing of The Tempest starring Alastair Sim and Eileen Atkins)

We ended with extra Noel Coward, the slightly disturbing, but pleasant Sail Away the place Coward proclaims that the answer to any of life’s issues is to ‘sail away’!

All through, speaker Simon Butteriss offered the connective tissue between the songs with a sequence of apt and generally devastating items of poetry and prose, generally fairly tiny and really eclectic within the selection of writing together with Jacques Cousteau, Arthur Ransome, Walt Whitman, Samuel Johnson, John Masefield, Virginia Woolf, Rabindranath Tagore, Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Longfellow, Sylvia Plath, Swinburne, Sara Teasdale, Langston Hughes, and Mark Twain, plus Dickens’ Dombey and Son, Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle, and Camus’ The Plague. 

All in all a considerate and imaginative night, that saved the main target the place it was wanted, on the songs.