Curiously starting with a song copyrighted in 1900 and more understandably ending with several copyrighted in 2005, the Boosey & Hawkes Song Collection Volume 2 1901 -- 2004 is full of good things, some not easily available elsewhere. Vaughan William’s take on Verlaine, Keel’s superlative Trade Winds, Britten’s The Birds, Howells’s The Widow Bird, Poston’s Sweet Suffolk Owl and two good Irelands make it worth getting. . . . The American selection from Copland and Rorem is pretty good. There are some excellent arrangements of folksongs, in particular two by Herbert Hughes.

(Sheet Music Review)