Delius had a special relationship with the collective human voice, and the songs here are presented chronologically, which allows us to follow pleasurably the development of his style.
The extracts from A Village Romeo and Juliet and Appalachia prolong what would otherwise be a rather brief encounter and their accompaniments also provide contrast of timbre, but they do need to be heard in context to 'take off'. The 'essential' Delius comes with On Craig Dhu – experience of nature not so much tinged by melancholy as perceived through it; a haunting evocation in grey; and the setting of Tennyson's The splendour falls on castle walls, as characteristically Delius as Britten's setting of it, in his Serenade, is Britten.
Though the singing itself deserves a generally warm welcome, not all Delius's chromatic wanderings are as confidently charted as they might be. The sopranos seem the strongest contingent, and the ones most often in the expressive spotlight. Nor are the soloists ideal, the tenor sounding unhappy in the higher regions of the second of the two songs, To be sung of a summernight on the water. And on occasions, as in the first of those two songs, one might have wished for more varied pacing and dynamic shading from the conductor. But the world of Delius performance is one where devotees are used to taking the roundabouts with the swings, and this is the only all-Delius collection of its kind on the market.

This is the only all-Delius collection of its kind on the market and it allows us to pleasurably follow the development of Delius's style

Matthew Grenall and the Elysians should be congratulated ... this CD should be in the collection of every Delian