Vaughan Williams' nine Songs of Travel were settings of Robert Louis Stevenson poems in Victorian parlor style. Color them period pieces by an emerging composer out to please. “The Vagabond,” which opens the set, comes close to quoting the March in his incidental music to The Wasps, while “Youth and Love” is a genuinely pretty lullaby. But much of the rest sounded rather like dated nonsense designed to follow a Commodore's dramatic reading of The Battle of Trafalgar.

Vaughan Williams is easily my favorite English composer this side of Purcell, but as an orchestral composer. For me, his vocal works never quite make it over the fence.

Baritone Brancoveanu, a experienced member of the Merola Program and SF Opera productions, sang the Songs of Travel with security, bravado and musicality throughout, not to mention excellent English elocution. And from memory. One does not normally expect that last from a Romanian vocalist. His voice might well be heard above the (imagined) cannon fire as he presented the songs with a full measure of stylish devotion.

Bridge, best known for being Britten's teacher, was only a few years younger than Vaughan Williams, but he largely devoted his efforts to chamber music. The Cello Sonata took the unusual form of two movements: a sonata form plus a set of variations, mostly in ruminative mode. In that, he rather reflected Beethoven's last piano sonata. All of the Sonata sits on the dour and quite thick side of high Romanticism, reflecting something of Bax and Delius. Yet the whole of the piece came off as curiously Russian-sounding, notably à la Rachmaninoff with a few genuflections toward Scriabin. Of course, this comes from the first half of his development. The later works from the mid-1920s on, beginning with his Third Quartet (1926) had far more interesting things to offer. Cellist Moore made as fine a case for the piece as one can imagine, using appropriately restrained vibrato, excellent rubato and tasteful elegance. She mounted the various virtuoso passages with no sign of strain whatever, which is something in so large a composition.

The folk song arrangements all held their delights. Beethoven's settings used all four musicians, that is, voice and piano trio. Believe it or not, he managed 172 such settings of folk songs from various countries, mostly from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England. There are, however, a few from Denmark, Italy, Poland, Russian, Austria and France.

These were money-makers for Beethoven, published in collections without opus numbers. Thus “Paddy o'Rafferty,” which opened our set, is from his 20 Irish Songs, WoO 153. Sunday's series closed with “The British Light Dragoons,” which, oddly, is from the same “Irish” collection. Rarely performed today, Beethoven's folk settings are nevertheless fine examples of the mature composer's lighter side. (Had he assigned them opus numbers, they'd be somewhere between Opus 90 and Opus 100.)

Vaughan Williams dropped the pianist when setting “The Lawyer” for voice and solo violin, a thing that, like so many of the other folk songs, is in bright six-eight jig style. The best known was a cello-piano version of his famous Fantasia on Greensleeves. Britten's three included “The foggy foggy dew” – now made rather infamous by the Monty Python kidnapping of the tune for “The Lumber Jack Song.” Britten's other two beautifully accomplished settings included “Sweet Polly Oliver” and the recognizable “O Waly, Waly.”

Pianist Parr, who is himself English, organized this series and served as pianist throughout. As head of the SF Opera's music staff, he has had a distinguished career with the major opera houses of London, Scotland, Hannover and Bayreuth before his work here. He's also an experienced recitalist and chamber player. There were no problems in his playing at all, although my standard complaint remains: it's far better to lower the piano lid during chamber music programs.

If none of this music proved to be major, we still owe Parr and Old First congratulations for the effort of organizing such an evening of the unusual. Most of the program consisted of works we rarely if ever will encounter in a lifetime, and certainly not in such handsome live performances.