This is an album of works by Ralph Vaughan Williams for voice, arranged with string quartet, string quintet or piano. Every track represents the first recording of the work as presented in this format.

Five Mystical Songs, based on meditative poems by George Herbert, were first performed in 1911. The composer made an arrangement for piano and string quintet in about 1925. These forces suit the work ideally; seldom performed, this is the first recording. These are followed on the album by two early songs: When I am dead my Dearest and Dreamland, settings of Christina Rossetti written in 1903 and 1905. These were sung in the early years by both male and female singers, but prior recordings (two out of three of them on ALBCD002 Kissing her Hair) were made by sopranos; these are the first recordings by a male singer.

The complete folk song settings of Vaughan Williams on four albums with 81 songs (ALBCD042-45) have been well-received. Roderick Williams, who took part in that series, has chosen eight of the songs and transcribed Vaughan Williams’s arrangements for string quartet. These have been successful in performance and are recorded for the first time. Willow-Wood is a Cantata first performed with voice and piano in 1903. Orchestrated for a second performance in 1909, the composer was not satisfied with it, and perhaps ceased to promote it, though we know of half a dozen subsequent performances. Roderick Williams recorded the orchestral version for Naxos in 2005, and now records the work for voice and piano, the original forces employed.