Although Vaughan Williams is best known as a symphonist and for large-scale choral works, the essence of his music can also be found in his songs, which demonstrate a peerless sensitivity to the beauty of the English language. Songs of Travel, composed in 1904 at a time when the composer’s personal voice was emerging, have been described as a “kind of English Winterreise”. Together with The House of Life, settings of six sonnets by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, they are the first to mark a significant advance from the Edwardian parlour song towards true English art song. Volume 3 of the Naxos English Song Series (8.557114) features Vaughan Williams’ famous Housman settings On Wenlock Edge.