CD Review - 'An die musik'
by David Ashton-Smith and Claire Preston

An die musik is a compilation of classical, romantic and twentieth century art songs and ballads. The bulk of the seventy minutes of music is made up of English art songs and ballads which include composers such as Roger Quilter, Gerald Finzi and Eric Coates. The listener is even treated to a song by a relatively unknown and unpublished English composer (Owl Light by Robert Docker). This leaves the listener wondering why we haven't heard much of his music before, when it clearly stands in league with the other English composers.

There is the occasional German song and even a Faure, Au Bord de L'eau, which is the sole representative of the marvellous corpus the French have produced over the past one hundred years. Likewise the Gershwin (I Got Plenty o' Nuttin) does sound out of place, being of a totally different idiom to the other songs.

Nevertheless David Ashton-Smith, baritone, and Claire Preston, piano, have assembled a pleasant selection of many favourites that do not fail to captivate the listener. Most of the tracks were recorded in the very generous acoustic of Xavier College Chapel. Ashton-Smith's voice has a very even quality, with warmth and good diction. Preston's accompaniment is admirable with strong support being provided to the vocal lines.

As the programme notes state this is an 'evergreen' collection. (For evergreen read sampler) Performed by a competent partnership, this disc would certainly be worth consideration by the vocal student who is starting to explore the diversity of the vocal repertoire. An added bonus is that it contains a number of works in the VCE Music Performance Classical Voice Syllabus. Perhaps other instrumentalists could be persuaded to do the same?