Della Jones, Pénélope Thwaites - The Grainger Edition Vol. 12: Songs for Mezzo-Soprano (1999) Hi-Res

Again Grainger amazes, amuses, arouses, intrigues. These 'Songs for mezzo' originate in Britain (with an excellent sequence of Scottish songs), Jutland and Australia. Some are folksongs collected in the early years of the century; two have words by Kipling, five by Ella, Grainger's wife, and some have no words at all.
The latter are fortifying antidotes to those textmerchants who think that song is essentially 'about' the communication of words, whereas everybody knows that you sing (la-la, dee-dee, as in these of Grainger) because a tune has taken your fancy and singing it makes you feel better.
It's really Della Jones's record, or hers and that of the admirable Penelope Thwaites. But the menfolk appear occasionally and always to effect. Mark Padmore is a resourceful tenor with hints here that he has in reserve a vibrant, rather Italianate body of tone. Jones hereself is a natural for Grainger: she has the spirit to match, and, like him, a certain ambiguity in her forthrightness, so that at times we're not quite sure what's serious and what's a bit of fun. The Colonial Song ('Sentimental No 1') is unashamedly nostalgic, but with an element of send-up too: in the piano solos especially a joyful passage of inspired improvisation that's both a joke and 'for real'.
Also for real is the prime quality of this disc, with 15 tracks 'premiere recordings' and 14 'premiere recordings in this version'.