In this beautiful collection of songs based on the poetry of WB Yeats, vocalist Christine Tobin has created an unqualified masterpiece. Setting poems from across the entire spectrum of Yeats' oeuvre, Tobin perfectly gauges the emotional and spiritual resonances of the texts, aided by performances of incredible subtlety and understatement. The singer nails her beguilingly pure tone and melodic fecundity to the mast from the get-go in the autumnal opener ‘When You Are Old’. In the music's simplicity and emotional directness – songs such as ‘What Then?’, ‘The Wild Swans At Coole’ and ‘Byzantium’ channel a folk-like potency and restraint – you might be able to detect residual traces of her previous release, Tapestry Unravelled. Special guest Gabriel Byrne, Tobin's former school teacher in Dublin, recites ‘The Lake Isle Of Innisfree’ (adroitly accompanied by the singer on piano), ‘The Pity Of Love’ and ‘The White Birds’, and if his presence on the album helps to attract the attention of a wider audience then so much the better. Creating a sound-world all of its own, the seductive spell of Sailing to Byzantium is immediate, its depth of feeling limitless. Discs of this stature are not common – this one is recommended unreservedly.