The Deeps Have Music is a new record from mezzo Beth Taylor; a Cardiff Singer of the World finalist in 2023, and pianist Hamish Brown. It’s distinctly sea themed with songs predominantly in English with a few French and German numbers for variety.

It starts off with Hamilton Harty’s arrangement of My Lagan Love which is a rather lovely introduction to Taylor’s flexible but generally fairly dark mezzo. She is very versatile though as the next set; Hedwige Chretien’s Petits Poèmes du bord de L’Eau, demonstrates. These six short songs show that Taylor has a considerable palette of colours and moods. There’s some nice precise piano playing from Brown here too.

Three Schubert songs tend to the darker and more dramatic but she shows some very smooth high notes and excellent legato in “Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren”. There’s a pleasing version of Alma Mahler’s “Lobgesang” too.

Then there are four pieces by some of Britain’s saltiest composers. There’s the world premiere recording of Cameron Biles-Liddell’s The Breakers, which is highly atmospheric with a lot of dark brooding passages but also some lighter, brighter fare and an interesting piano part. This was written for, and dedicated to Taylor and Brown. There’s Ethyl Smyth’s Three Moods of the Sea which ranges from busy, high and declamatory in “Before the Storm” to quiet and reflective in “After Sunset”. The various moods are handled very nicely.

The most substantial work is Elgar’s well known Sea Pictures which is beautifully done with some really elegant and stylish singing especially in “Where Corals Lie” and a very dramatic finish with “The Swimmer”. The recording ends with Hamilton Harty’s dark and dramatic setting of Moira O’Neill’s Sea Wrack; possibly the only poem about a tragedy while harvesting seaweed.

The recording is fine but the CD resolution version, which I had for review, is not especially brilliant which is a bit odd for this distinctly audiophile label. There are also 192kHz and 96kHz 24 bit versions which should offer more detail. There’s also MP3 if you must. It’s digital only and scheduled for release on 2nd October 2026. There’s an excellent booklet with notes, bios and full texts.

Beth Taylor’s voice is worth getting to know and this mix of well known and not so well known songs is a pretty good way to do so.

Catalogue information: Linn Records CKD794