Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (1889-1960) is one of the shadowy figures of British musical history. We may know his name, but perhaps little more. The notes...

Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (1889-1960) is one of the shadowy figures of British musical history. We may know his name, but perhaps little more. The notes to this enterprising and welcome Marco Polo CD suggest that, if his name is remembered at all, it is because of the lasting appeal of two Walter de la Mare settings, Five eyes and Silver. Both are already represented in the catalogue and are included here, as is the waltz Dusk, with which, as Grove affirms, Gibbs "enjoyed an immense commercial success in the late 1940s" and which rounds off the present collection in a vocal arrangement.

If it is still Five eyes, de la Mare's delightfully amusing portrait of three cats (one of them with only one eye) that grabs the attention above all, there are certainly other rewarding pieces in the collection. I especially admired the four songs from de la Mare's school play Crossings, above all the haunting "Ann's Cradle Song", with its insistent bass accompaniment.

Twenty-five songs in under 53 minutes means that many of the songs are distinctly brief, but the conciseness of Gibbs's settings is one of his virtues. There are no false pretensions about the settings, and both words and music are readily accessible. As the programme notes emphasize, Gibbs believed that the words were paramount and always allowed the poem to dictate the musical shape of the song.

-- Gramophone [11/1993]