There Is Sweet Music is the idyllic title of the first AVIE by the eight-voice Proteus Ensemble and their conductor Stephen Shellard, which surveys a selection of relatively rare part-songs by Sir Edward Elgar.Elgar maintained his dedication to composing part-songs throughout his life and imbued each of them with an inimitable character. Like the composer's celebrated InchEnigma VariationsInch, his part-songs bear an array of inspirations and dedicatees, including his wife Caroline Alice who penned the poem of the album's closer, InchO Happy EyesInch, shortly after she and Elgar were married. This early work became a companion to the song InchLove,Inch written eight years later and also dedicated to Caroline Alice. Elgar turned to famous poets and peers - Lord Byron for InchDeep in my soulInch, Percy Bysshe Shelley for InchO wild West Wind!Inch, and Alfred Lord Tennyson whose poem InchThe Lotos-EatersInch provides the album's title track. English translations of Russian poems lend themselves to InchDeath on the HillsInch, InchLove's TempestInch and InchSerenadeInch. Elgar frequently found inspiration in Italy, where he composed InchAngelus', a song dedicated to his close friend Alice Stuart Wortley whom he called InchWindflowerInch and whose spirit is enshrined in his Violin Concerto.Stephen Shellard's Elgarian epiphany began in 1990 when he joined Dr. Donald Hunt's choir at Worcester Cathedral as an Alto Lay Clerk. Dr. Hunt's inspired and devoted expertise in performances of works by Worcester's most famous musical son cast a life-long spell on Stephen that manifests itself in these beautiful performances with his Proteus Ensemble.