Clive Osgood’s arrangements of three folksongs for unaccompanied choir reflect the themes of love and the dangers that affect sailors. The Crystal Spring appeared in Cecil Sharp’s One Hundred Folksongs of 1908. Presented from the woman’s perspective, it tells of a captain who courts his true love and promises to be faithful to her. The sopranos sing this beautiful, flowing tune, accompanied by the lower voices.

Cecil Sharp also collected Spanish Ladies in the early 20^th century. The song is a vivid contrast, as the mixed voices sing vigorously this strongly rhythmic setting. It may derive from the days when the Royal Navy carried supplies to Spain to help the country resist the Revolutionary France.

The Drowned Lover is a beautiful lament: a woman finds the drowned body of her lover. Osgood has arranged the song with varied textures and harmonies to highlight the tragedy.

Three Folksong Hymn Arrangements bring a very pleasant surprise. The first hymn, What Child is This, is a Christmas carol. Despite a Church of England upbringing, I had no idea that the wonderful tune Greensleeves had been used in a carol. (The tune from 1580 is apparently in the Italian style, but its setting was entitled A Newe Northen Dittye of ye Ladye Greene Sleves.)

I was taken aback to find that this carol setting dates from 1865, but not surprised to discover that it did not take its place in the C of E tradition. It is more likely to appear in other denominations, especially in the USA.

Osgood has made a wonderful arrangement. The carol is sung primarily by the altos. The basses briefly take over, and the remaining voices mostly provide a tapestry of interweaving suspensions. The altos have periodic interjections where their voices gleam through the others like a sunbeam. The effect is magical.

Less magical is the rather extreme change of key that Osgood has imposed for the final verse. I thought at first that I had misheard it, because the modulation takes place in a way that sounds like the voices melt or slide into the new key. Repeated hearing has just about convinced me that the effect is justified. Regardless of this minor caveat, this track is my highlight of the programme.

There is another very familiar tune, Kingsfold, in the next carol, I Heard The Voice Of Jesus Say. Ralph Vaughan Williams collected the tune and used in the 1906 English Hymnal. It is the basis for his gorgeous Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus. Osgood provides a fine setting, especially so for the final verse, where a modulation leads to a marvellous use of the sopranos. They soar above the other voices at “I am this dark world’s Light” and “I found in him my Star, my Sun”.

The third carol, An Upper Room, is a modern setting of the well-known folk ballad O Waly, Waly. (Cecil Sharp published it in 1906 in Folk Songs From Somerset.) The tune is given to the men in the first verse, and then a richer texture for the second verse where the sopranos get the melody. A key change takes us into the third verse, sung richly by the middle female voices. The fourth verse ends the setting in a similar way to the first.

For the last cycle on this disc, Osgood has selected songs with a  nautical theme from three southern counties, West Sussex, Hampshire and Surrey. The orchestra has a prominent part in each song. They are all strophic – the melody repeats in each verse – although Osgood points out that he has included a passacaglia as a ground bass in the third song.

The five songs are grouped to present semi-continuous images of nautical life as Britain established its navy’s dominance. In All Things Are Quite Silent, a woman laments the loss of her press-ganged lover. In The Privateer, the sailor and his lover lament his departure. The third song, Royal Oak, tells of a victorious battle in which one ship sunk three Turkish ships, burned three more and three ran away. The remaining ship, they caught and towed back to Portsmouth!

In the contemplative The Mermaid, a sailor sees a mermaid – the traditional sign of disaster for the ship. Sure enough, the ship becomes lost and most of the crew drown. Finally, The Ship in Distress describes a ship that loses its headgear in a storm and drifts for fourteen days. The crew are suffering badly when a rescue vessel is espied. They are taken to Cape Verde and safety. The cheerful ending rounds out the set very nicely.

The Polyphony choir perform quite magnificently. A shoutout to the sopranos, and their arranger Clive Osgood, for their role in all the songs, but especially in What Child is This. The Britten Sinfonia are also very fine. Stephen Layton has done a great job in directing the orchestra and the choir. They sound like they were enjoying themselves, although judging by the recording session photographs, the January recording date made for thick woollens in a sparsely heated church.

The production values of the recording are high. The booklet in English gives a detailed description of each of eleven songs. There are multiple colour photographs of the recording sessions, and full listings of the choir and orchestra members. The recorded sound is excellent: everything has been caught in a vividly grateful acoustic.