Stanford, as his biographer and British music authority Jeremy Dibble comments in his authoritative notes, “was very much alive to the importance of children’s participation in music” following the transformative introduction of signing to the school curriculum in 1870. This delightful compendium of songs intended for children reveals the composer to be as acutely sensitive to his eclectic choice of texts as to his intended audience.
It features premiere recordings of the early, Robert Louis Stevenson-set A Child’s Garland of Songs, Op. 30, the mid-period Four Songs, Op. 112 and later Six Songs, Op. 175, together with seven other standalone songs, including the simple pastoral message of Summer’s Rain and Winter’s Snow and delightfully capricious Fairy Lures.
Somm Recordings’ previous Stanford recordings include his String Quintets and complete String Quartets with the Dante Quartet, praised by Gramophone for their “ardent, alert and thoroughly lived-in performances”, and Partsongs with the Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir led by Paul Spicer, which Limelight described as “excellent… beautifully sung”. © SOMM Recordings