Herbert Murrill
Four Elizabethan Songs (1927-30)
Three Carols (1929)
Self-Portrait (1929)
Trois Poèmes (1930)
Four Pastorals (1936)
The Months of the Year (c1936)
Two Herrick Songs (1938)
In Youth is Pleasure (1942)
Sonatina for Piano (1952) – Andantino

Crispin Lewis (baritone); Raymond Lewis (piano) with Rachel Broadbent (oboe, carols)

First Hand Records FHR161 [55’48’’] All world premiere recordings
English/French texts and English translations included
Producer Emily Baines Engineer John Croft

Recorded 19 & 20 April 2024 at Rosslyn Hill Chapel, Hampstead, London

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

First Hand Records issues this first release devoted to the songs of Herbert Murrill (1909-52), now a largely forgotten though once influential figure on music circles in London and further afield; his pedagogical and administrative skills held in high esteem by a younger generation.

What’s the music like?

Murrill’s death at only 43 brought to its premature end a career which, in addition to a sizable output, involved working at the BBC – latterly as its Head of Music – and, in the earlier war years, intelligence work at Bletchley Park. An unassuming figure who operated within if at a conscious remove from the music establishment of his day, Murrill was widely respected for his professionalism – as is borne out by his own music with its lightness of touch and its deft handling of traits stemming from Stravinsky, Poulenc and neo-Classicism between the wars.

It made sense to open this recital with My Youth is Pleasure, its airy setting of Robert Wever highlighting that acute yet unforced nostalgia such as pervades so many of these songs. The lengthy The Months of the Year sustains itself ably, then a wittily engaging quartet of songs to Elizabethan texts almost inevitably recalls the influence of Peter Warlock. Four Pastorals find Murrill indulging his more lyrical tendencies to appealing effect, notably in a setting of the anonymous text Phillada Flouts Me that unerringly catches its deadpan anguish. Nor is he unwilling to tackle more contemporary writers, witness his Satie-esque response to verse by Jacques Prévert and Robert Desnos; though whether those changes to the former’s poems were considered improvements or just unintentional anomalies is now impossible to decide.

A trio of carols with oboe accompaniment (including a Medieval Scottish translation of verse by Martin Luther) would be a welcome addition to a medium which features little other than Vaughan Williams’s masterly Blake settings. After which, the wryly elegant Arioso from a Piano Sonatina makes one wish the surrounding movements could have been included (there was certainly room in terms of playing time). The brace of songs to texts by Robert Herrick summons a more sustained and eloquent response, as to suggest that Murrill’s music might have explored deeper emotions had he lived. This anthology concludes with Self-Portrait – four settings of his contemporary Geoffrey Dunn which anticipate Betjeman in their dry wit and self-deprecating humour – a very English take, indeed, on matters of existential import.

Does it all work?

Yes, albeit for the most part within its narrowly while precisely defined limits. As a composer, Murrill was clearly not out to change the world but rather to offer a discreet commentary from the margins, which he does with admirable skill and not a little affectingly. He has a devoted advocate in Crispin Lewis, for whom this project was doubtless a labour of love, and who is sensitively accompanied by Raymond Lewis or, in the Three Carols, Rachel Broadbent. He also contributes informative and well-researched notes about the life of this singular figure.

Is it recommended?

It is, and there is enough of interest musically to make one curious to hear such as Murrill’s jazz-opera Man in Cage, written to a libretto by Dunn and that enjoyed an eight-week run in London in 1930 before vanishing without trace. For now, this collection ably fulfils its remit.

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Click on the artist names to read more on Crispin Lewis, Richard Lewis and Rachel Broadbent

Published post no.2,509 – Saturday 19 April 2025