Gems in their own right these songs offer tantalizing glimpses of what might have been had Browne been granted time.The life of gifted composer Organist musician and teacher W Denis Browne was cut cruelly short when at age 26 he was mortally wounded at the battle for Gallipoli just a few weeks after he buried his friend the poet Rupert Brooke on Skyros. In his brief years he had a particularly active musical life showing brilliance in his music criticism and composing a few works most of which were destroyed at his request after his death. These six songs and in particular To Gratiana Dancing and Singing demonstrate great gifts proceeding from bud to bloom andanticipating some of the impressionistic later works of Debussy.
