"this really packs an emotional punch ... the purity of tone as well as the precision of Lotte Betts-Dean's singing is just extraordinary"

"Superbly performed ... 'Days to Recollect' creates a wonderfully evocative atmosphere, with Keegan's appealing guitar writing complementing Betts-Dean's voice ... . The Gurney is touchingly melancholy, the guitar accompaniment bringing a distinctly lute-song-ish feel to Gurney's writing. Milford's song is delightfully perky, the guitar enhancing its insouciant wistfulness. The Finzi returns us to more sober melancholy, and darker intensity ... Kerry Andrew weaves something complex and fascinating ... Keegan has crafted a highly satisfying mix of old and new, with his arrangements making us see more familiar items differently. My own favourite remains his cycle for voice and guitar, but the whole recital is a lovely one, benefitting from superbly sympathetic performances"

ROBERT HUGILL
read the full review here

The performances of James Girling and the Ligeti Quartet are perceptive and sympathetic; Lotte Betts-Dean, in addition, provides an admirable range of vocal colours and timbres together with excellent, clear diction ... Among Keegan's other arrangements, Britten's 'At the Railway Station, Upway' (from Winter Words) and the textural simplicity of Imogen Holst's "Weathers' are perhaps most effective for guitar accompaniment alone, though I was drawn to Derek Holman's discerning Queen of Hearts' interpretation of 'Midnight on the Great Western', where the addition of string quartet adds a glistening sheen, and a pensive vein to the 'what if sentiment of Muriel Herbert's 'Faintheart in a Railway Train' ... Kerry Andrew's "The Echo Elf Answers', commissioned by Keegan for this recording and which is perhaps most typical of Hardy's poetic ingenuity, conveys something of the poet's persistent self-accusation, notably in the ostinato of the closing section"