After many acclaimed releases on BIS, most recently ‘Sounds and Sweet Airs – A Shakespeare Songbook’ (BIS-2653), Carolyn Sampson’s latest recital with Joseph Middleton lives up to its name: it is an eloquent testimony to the English soprano’s love of her art. This programme artfully blends well-known and lesser-known lieder by German and Austrian masters such as Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Richard Strauss and Hugo Wolf with French songs by Gounod, Poulenc and Franck, as well as works by Anglo-Saxon composers such as Hubert Parry, Samuel Barber and Ivor Gurney. Female composers are not forgotten, with rarely-performed songs by Rita Strohl based on slightly risqué poems by Pierre Louÿs, music by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Kaija Saariaho – who has recently passed away – and Deborah Pritchard, whose song presented here was composed especially for Sampson. And while Leonard Bernstein’s comically cheeky song ‘I hate music’, appears to be a call not to let music take itself too seriously, Errollyn Wallen’s ‘Peace on Earth’, which concludes the album, invokes calm and encourages us to find peace, a message that seems more relevant today than ever.

For generations, the noble family of the House of Szechenyi have played a decisive role in shaping Hungary's destiny. Katharina Ruckgaber and Tamas Egresi, accompanied by Helmut Deutsch, have compiled a representative selection of songs from the large repertoire of poems and compositions; an impressive testimony to the wide-ranging interests and talents of one of Europe's most important aristocratic families.

The figure of George Frideric Handel cast a long shadow over musical London in the first half of the eighteenth century; casting many of his contemporaries – fine composers themselves – into centuries of obscurity. This recording throws light into forgotten corners and discovers some glittering gems; some of them demanding dazzling vocal fireworks from their performers. Several of these composers set scenes from Classical mythology or Old Testament narratives – but they also explore the underside of the Baroque psyche in one of David’s darkest psalms and in a representation of Arcadian madness.

MDG's multi-award-winning Les Six anthology series showcases the entire spectrum of an epoch. This installment is dedicated to Louis Durey, the eccentric outsider of Le groupe des Six. Holger Falk's incredibly agile baritone and tremendous tonal range accompanied by Steffen Schleiermacher's sensitivity, verve and virtuosity on the piano yet again take the benchmark up a notch in art song excellence.

The 37 songs in this recital, written by 27 composers – male, female, English, French, Swiss, German, Romantic, modern and contemporary – bear witness to the richness of Shakespeare’s works to which this recital is dedicated. Organised in the form of a play in five acts, including prologue and epilogue, the songs, which include several duets, are in turn cheerful and sad, light and profound, classical and jazzy – thus allowing, in Carolyn Sampson’s words, ‘a breadth of responses to these great texts’. Alongside well-known melodies, such as those by Schubert, there are musical adaptations by different composers of the same texts, as well as a contemporary reflection for the two voices by Hannah Kendall exploring the question of gender fluidity and identity through the elusive character of Rosalind from As You Like It.

After many acclaimed releases on BIS, including Album für die Frau, a collection of songs by Clara and Robert Schumann, A Soprano’s Schubertiade and Elysium, two Schubert recitals, as well as a number of themed recitals, some of which were named ‘Recording of the Month’ by MusicWeb International and ‘CD-Tipp’ by BR Klassik, Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton are joined here by renowned British baritone Roderick Williams.

REVIEW:

Soprano Carolyn Sampson and baritone Roderick Williams are prolific singers who can handle almost any kind of repertory but have a strong connection to the English tradition from the Baroque to the 20th century. It would be hard to imagine better singers for this collection of Shakespeare songs, for on one hand, Shakespeare settings are about as traditional as one can get, while on the other, this is an exceptionally diverse collection. Listeners unaware that Haydn set Shakespeare should make it their business to hear Sampson in She never told her love, as soon as possible. There are settings of German Shakespeare translations by Schubert, Schumann, and Hugo Wolf, a French one by Arthur Honegger, and an entrancing English-language Fancy by Poulenc. This album represents, in short, an embarrassment of riches, and it is one of the finest Shakespeare song releases to come along in quite some time.

-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)

CONTENTS:

• Ireland: Full fathom five
• Vaughan Williams: Dirge for Fidele
• Moeran: The Lover and his Lass
• Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Arise, "Sea Murmurs"
• Smith, J C: You spotted snakes
• Tippett: Songs for Ariel
• Arne: Under the Greenwood Tree
• Gurney: Under the greenwood tree
• Parry: Sonnet LXXXVII
• Ireland: When daffodils begin to peer
• Haydn: She Never Told Her Love, Hob. XXVIa:34
• Schubert: An Silvia, D 106
• Schubert: Ständchen 'Horch! Horch! die Lerch!', D889
• Schubert: Trinklied D888
• Schumann: Schlusslied des Narren, Op.127 No. 5
• Wolf, H: Lied des transferierten Zettel
• Cornelius: Komm herbei, Tod, Op.16 No. 3
• Frances-Hoad: Rosalind
• Poulenc: Fancy
• Britten: Fancie
• Honegger: Deux Chants d'Ariel
• Bridge: Blow, blow, thou winter wind
• Dring: Take, O Take Those Lips Away
• Dankworth: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
• Horder: Under the greenwood tree
• Coleridge-Taylor: The Willow Song
• Beach, A: Fairy Lullaby
• Williams, Roderick: Sigh no More, Ladies
• Sullivan, A: Orpheus with his Lute

Grammy Award-winning, “velvet voiced” (NPR) baritone Will Liverman presents a recital program honoring women in classical music, past and present, on Show Me The Way, his second “passion project” recording for Cedille.

Praised as “nothing short of extraordinary” (Opera News), Liverman has curated a moving and poignant recital celebrating American female composers from 20th-century trailblazers Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, and Amy Cheney Beach to present-day composers commissioned for this program. This new album, Liverman’s second with longtime recital partner pianist Jonathan King, is inspired by and honors the singer’s mother, gospel singer Terry Liverman, and their mutual love of song. The Livermans perform together on recording for the first time in their own arrangement of Alma Bazel Androzzo’s cherished hymn If I Can Help Somebody.

Two new song cycles serve as pillars of the recording: Jasmine Barnes’ A Sable Jubilee with a newly commissioned libretto by Tesia Kwarteng that celebrates Black Joy, and Libby Larsen’s three movement Machine Head: Ted Burke Poems, depicting everyday American life. Liverman premiered the cycles in an “extraordinary recital… as meaningful in content as it was rich with his resonant voice—both elements impressive for their range” (Aspen Times). Liverman, “one of the most versatile singing artists performing today,” (Bachtrack) is joined by all-star special guests including J’Nai Bridges in a somber new work by Rene Orth and Renée Fleming in Sarah Kirkland Snider’s mysterious and affecting Everything That Ever Was. He sings a duet from Amy Beach’s rarely performed opera, Cabildo, with Nicole Cabell, featuring violinist Lady Jess and cellist Tahirah Whittington.

Also featured on the album are Jonathan King’s arrangement of Ella Fitzgerald and Chick Webb’s You Show Me The Way originally performed by the duo at New York’s Savoy Ballroom, as well as a new work, Spell to Turn the World Around,by Kamala Sankaram, with a text that calls awareness to the destruction caused by wildfires. This recording follows Liverman’s “devastatingly beautiful” (The Washington Post), Billboard chart-topping and Grammy-nominated Cedille album, Dreams of a New Day: Songs by Black Composers.

Insomnia is a persistent or recurrent sleeplessness. When we sleep fitfully or lie awake night after night, we conjure up all manner of images, fantasies and feelings, which in the hours of darkness or twilight mostly seem confused, larger than life and very existential. That is how it is with our choice of Lieder. The pieces examine the great feelings and issues like love, death, hate, yearning, under the magnifying glass of nocturnal sensitivity. Worlds arise in which one no longer knows what is true and what is not. And that is what is special about our Insomnia: everything is possible, and everything is to be found in the ears and the eyes of the listener.

The inspiration for this album came about from Ruby Hughes’ first collaboration with the Manchester Collective in the spring of 2020. During the first Covid lockdown, they built the programme of this recital for the purpose of touring the UK and uplifting their audiences at a time when we were all being confronted by challenging notions of mortality and isolation. As artists, they asked themselves what music might attend to the prevailing concerns of this time. Their answers came in the form of this offering.

The title of this album, End of My Days, comes from Errollyn Wallen’s song; a resounding celebration of life that embraces death without regret or sadness but with great verve and acceptance. The other songs, each in its own way, evoke silence and separation, but also love and hope and even the reassurance that we will return whence we came and light shall lift us into eternity. The concluding song, Deborah Pritchard’s Peace, is a message of hope, willingly received as the world emerged out of lockdown in 2021. Luminous tranquillity moves us into the light, towards eternity.

Multi award-winning Peruvian-Austrian tenor Juan Diego Flórez has now founded his own label. The first album of the label to be released is dedicated to the zarzuela genre. It also marks the star tenor‘s first recording with Sinfonía por el Perú Youth Orchestra and Choir, an organization that forms part of the social project he founded and supports. This first recording is led by conductor Guillermo García Calvo, who looks back on a long international career and has been Music Director of the Teatro de la Zarzuela between 2020 and 2024. A tour to major European arts centers featuring selected romances and orchestral pieces accompanies the release.

Juan Diego Flórez has made a name for himself as a bel canto specialist in particular. By turning to “zarzuela,” he returns to the genre with which he opened up the world of opera as a young singer and composer of popular songs. “These romances full of passion and emotion represent an almost unique opportunity for Spanish and Latin American tenors to sing in their mother tongue,” he says, describing his close connection to this Spanish form of opéra comique or operetta, which is very well-known and popular in the Hispanic world but less represented in other countries. By founding his own label, Juan Diego Flórez pursues the goal of documenting his artistic visions in a self-determined way.

The next releases include both solo albums, orchestra recitals, as well as complete operas. Having his own label also gives him the opportunity to support projects with Sinfonía por el Perú as well as promote young artists. “This recording production certainly fills me with happiness and pride. Firstly, because it represents my first recording with the Youth Orchestra and Choir of Sinfonía por el Perú - a social movement that seeks to improve the lives of Peruvian children and youngsters through the collective practice of music; secondly, because it was done in Lima, my hometown; and thirdly, because it constitutes the launch of my own record label." Juan Diego Flórez

Spanning her debut in the 1890s to the esoteric vision of her later years, this world premiere recording features a superb line-up of rising Danish singers, breathing life into Tekla Griebel Wandall's (1869-1953) vivid songs. From the macabre irony of a -Heinrich Heine setting to the profound emotional journey of J.P. Jacobsen's poetry, Wandall grapples with seemingly irreconcilable opposites while toying with both form and feeling.

In A Brother Abroad, Martin Bussey's rich compositional voice vividly brings to life the fascinating figure of Peter of Bologna, a fourteenth-century Franciscan bishop. This compelling new recording showcases baritone Marcus Farnsworth, soprano Alison Rose, and an ensemble led by pianist Libby Burgess, alongside Emma Halnan, George Strivens (French horn), and Stephen Burke . The text, written by Anthony Pinching, draws on historical sources, and Bussey's music deftly balances moments of spirituality, political intrigue, and celebration. This album also features songs cycles A Chainless Soul and Children of Adam with texts by Emily Bronte and Walt Whitman respectively, and highlights Bussey's flair for dramatic storytelling and his deep connection to English song, cementing his reputation as a distinctive contemporary voice.

French love songs: first love, wild passion, longing, wistful retrospection …

Hans Zender's reimagining of Schubert's Winterreise transforms a familiar piano cycle into a vivid orchestral journey, blending intimacy and intensity. Tenor Allan Clayton and conductor Nicholas Collon lead Aurora Orchestra through a landscape of fractured memories, where folk-like simplicity collides with Mahlerian grandeur and Berg-like expressionism. Zender preserves Schubert's vocal line but enriches the sound world with guitar, accordion, melodicas, and striking orchestral effects that evoke storms, frozen tears, and fleeting dreams. This interpretation magnifies the cycle's raw truth about love, loss, and despair, offering audiences a deeply modern, immersive encounter with one of classical music's most haunting masterpieces

Throughout his life Johannes Brahms composed songs, including several cycles for two or more vocalists. Accompanied by Doriana Tchakarova, Felicitas and Judith Erb now present the duets in a finely tuned Super Audio album. With Magnus Dietrich, the ladies are joined by a truly youthful and radiant tenor for the clearly "male" pieces - a real asset, not only for the great ballads! The folksong-like tone runs through numerous duets. How Brahms, despite - or precisely because of? - the simplicity of the melody, is grandiose: for example, in the popular "Schwesterlein", or also in the dramatic ballad "Edward" with its piano part like an arch-king. Only for about half of the duets is the performance with two singers compulsory; Brahms even expressly intended the "Romances and Songs" op. 84 for one or two singers. The Erb sisters turn the tables and reinterpret many a Brahms song: "Der tote Gast", for example, or "Da unten im Tale", as well as the aforementioned "Schwesterlein", appear in a completely new light in the performance for two. On the Steinway concert grand "Manfred Bürki" from 1901, Doriana Tchakarova performs the piano part with somnambulistic certainty and a great sense for the intense mood of the individual works. From intimate to dramatic, from lyrical to sweeping, everything is there - a true listening pleasure, and not only in the three-dimensional reproduction!

'Little Wanderer', from William Blake's dream world, seemed the perfect title for an album in which we are surrounded by myriad landscapes in songs by Benjamin Britten, Imogen Holst and Daniel Kidane. Since meeting on our first day at the Royal College of Music, we have long enjoyed programming Britten's masterful folk song reimaginings, and we adore the texts and music in his powerful Hardy cycle, Winter Words. It has been a joy to discover songs by Imogen Holst, Britten's close friend and assistant, and we are proud to be able to make the first recording of Dan's Songs of Illumination, commissioned for us by Leeds Lieder in 2018. For over a decade, song in English has played a major part in our musical lives and performing relationship, and we are delighted to present this programme together.

Her fifth recital album on Signum Records, celebrated soprano Mary Bevan returns with a selection of French songs, featuring works by composers including Britten, Ravel, Debussy and Faure.

Star tenor Piotr Beczala presents a selection of romances by Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, together with the acclaimed lied accompanist Helmut Deutsch.

The romance was the most popular musical genre in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Russia, practiced by professionals as well as amateurs. Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff both enriched this genre with their lyricism and melodic invention.

Elevated by Deutsch’s splendid accompaniment, Beczala delivers these songs with a great sense for the Slavic idiom and meaning of the words, combined with colorful lyricism and italianità, perfectly fitting the Russian and cosmopolitan musical language of these two masters.

Piotr Beczala is one of the most sought-after tenors of his age, both on the opera and concert stage. His Pentatone debut album Vincerò! has been one of the most successful and critically acclaimed opera recital albums of the last few years. During the 2021 Opus Klassik Awards, Piotr Beczala was crowned as Singer of the Year for this exceptional recording. Pianist Helmut Deutsch is a first-class song accompanist, working together with the greatest vocalists of today. He makes his Pentatone debut.

Get ready to be transported to the bustling streets of Berlin and the bright lights of Broadway with mezzo-soprano Aylish Kerrigan's latest recording. In this invigorating program, Kerrigan takes us on a journey through the timeless songs of Kurt Weill, one of the most renowned composers of the 20th century. From Weill's collaborations with Bertholt Brecht in the German Theatre to his iconic Broadway stage works, this recording has something for everyone. You'll hear classics like "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" (Mack the Knife) and "Berlin im Licht," which captures the essence of the city as a love song. But that's not all – Kerrigan also brings us gems such as "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" from Weill's longest running musical, One Touch of Venus.

What makes this recording truly special is Aylish Kerrigan herself. Born and raised in San Francisco, Kerrigan is an established interpreter of German Theatre Music, having worked with some of the most noted Brecht specialists in the world. Her one-woman Broadway shows have earned her acclaim in major cities across the globe, from Paris to Dublin, New York to Berlin. Whether you're a die-hard Weill fan or simply appreciate great music, this recording is not to be missed. Critics and music lovers alike are sure to be captivated by Aylish Kerrigan's dynamic and soulful performances.

SOMM Recordings adds to it's already extensive catalogue of music by the British composer and BBC Radio 3 broadcaster Stephen Dodgson�(1924�- 2013) with a third volume of his songs titled Turn Ye to Me. SOMM's previous Dodgson song releases include The Peasant Poet [SOMMCD 0659], hailed by Opera Today as "an incredibly interesting and engaging disc... done excellent service by all the performers;" and The Distances Between [SOMMCD 0673], about which the�British Music Society�said "the performances (by some prestigious names) and the warm, lifelike recording are impeccable." The performers on this third volume of Dodgson songs include prior SOMM�artists also featured in Volumes I and II: Irish soprano Ailish Tynan and British mezzo-soprano Katie Bray, both past winners of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition; doctor-turned-tenor James Gilchrist, who is noted for his forthright and passionate style; Roderick Williams, one of the most sought-after baritones of his generation; guitarist and Dodgson specialist, Mark Eden; and GRAMMY� Award-winning pianist, Christopher Glynn. The recital opens with a first release of Three Songs to words of Thomas Lovell Beddoes, who died by suicide in 1849 aged 45. Tandaradei is his translation of the 13th-century German love poem, Under der linden, by�Walther von der Vogelweide. Dirge and The Old Crow of Cairo are from Beddoes's posthumously published drama Death's Jest Book. Three single songs include settings of Andrew Marvell's pastoral poem The Mower to the Glow-Worms; George Meredith's sonnet Winter Heavens; and Matthew Prior's poem Daphne to Apollo inspired by Greek myth and set to guitar accompaniment. Two short solo piano pieces are from a set of Eight Fanciful Pieces-included in full on SOMM's 2024 release of piano music by Dodgson [SOMMCD 0684.] The marcato (marked) tempo of Il Zoppo suggests an irregular gait, while the contemplative Mirage hints at an Impressionistic style. Dodgson composed three sets of Bush Ballads based on texts by Australian poets and Australian folk verses. This release of the third series is a first recording. All Got a Mate sets an anonymous text as a folk duet. Rollicking, but steady is the tempo marking for Song of the Squatters to words by A.B. "Banjo" Paterson. The group closes with a quieter setting of Waitin'-a-While by Jim Grahame. Two single songs from 1950 include The Stone, marked Moderato: Calmo, to words adapted from Hal Summers, and the title song, Turn Ye to Me, which is a gently haunting Hebridean air with lyrics by Christopher North. The recital closes with London Lyrics, a cycle of five songs for tenor and guitar set to poetry by five different poets across four centuries-including Wilfred Owen and Cecil Day-Lewis-all inspired by Dodgson's home city. The composer draws expressive and captivating range from voice and guitar, exquisitely executed here by James Gilchrist and Mark Eden.

MM Recordings presents a seductive and captivating release of Russian art songs, an intriguing juxtaposition of Russian Romances for voice and piano by Anton Arensky (1861-1906) and his student Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943). The recital, "performed with great charm and sympathy" (Opera Today), features two artists making their debut for SOMM: lyric coloratura soprano Anastasia Prokofieva-a rising young star in the opera world, described as "striking" by Opera Magazine-and London-based conductor, pianist, and vocal coach Sergey Rybin, an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied under SOMM recording artist Malcolm Martineau. Sergey Rybin's excellent notes, together with full texts and translations, help bring these neglected gems to light and highlight the inner connection between Arensky and Rachmaninoff. While there is no doubt that Rachmaninoff was possessed of a unique and innate musical gift, he acknowledged the profound influence of his teacher and mentor Arensky, who was his professor of harmony, counterpoint, and free composition at the Moscow Conservatory between 1885 and 1888, when Rachmaninoff was still a teenager. Arensky's writing-and Rachmaninoff's, too-is full of eminently singable melodies that are deeply connected both to bel canto and to a Russian folk aesthetic. Sergey Rybin also makes the point that a certain virtuosic flair in the piano parts of these rom�nsy, by both the professor and the pupil, "are unmistakably the branches of the same stylistic tree." Anton Arensky studied composition with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and he was just twenty-one when he began teaching harmony and counterpoint-and later, instrumentation and free composition-at the Moscow Conservatory. While his role as a teacher may well be his most lasting contribution, he remained active as a composer of operas, symphonies, concertos, chamber music, and piano works. He also wrote fifty-seven rom�nsy, which show his affinity for intimate, emotional expression. Included among the thirteen art songs by Arensky on this release are the Five Romances, Op. 70 from 1900, and the five-song cycle Reminiscence, Op. 71, circa 1905. Before Rachmaninoff left Russia permanently in 1917, he composed a total of eighty-three rom�nsy for voice and piano. His gift for lush melodies, expansive emotional range, and exceptionally difficult piano works makes him one of the last great Romantic pianist-composers, and these stellar qualities are evident in his art songs. Thirteen are presented on this programme. The earliest, from his Six Songs, Op. 8 written in 1893, include Child! You are as beautiful as a flower and Dream. The Twelve Songs, Op. 21, composed in 1902, include some of his finest vocal writing, Lilacs being an exquisite example. Rachmaninoff's last compositions in the genre of rom�nsy were the Six Songs, Op. 38 in 1916; four from this set close the recital.

SOMM RECORDINGS is delighted to announce Vaughan Williams – A Birthday Garland, the debut on disc of baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Susie Allan’s popular concert tribute to Ralph Vaughan Williams originally marking the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 2022.

Curating a “fantasy birthday party concert” in tribute to “the grand-daddy of 20th-century English song”, Williams has assembled pieces by RVW and 18 fellow composers. The result is a wide-ranging celebration of the rich variety of English song over a century and more that pays tribute to Vaughan Williams’ influence with songs inspired by poets ranging from Shakespeare and Tennyson to W.B. Yeats and Walt Whitman.

First recordings include Herbert Howell’s The Sorrow of Love, a setting of the Irish poet Seamus O’Sullivan; Sarah Cattley’s A Square and Candle-lighted Boat, treating verses by RVW’s cousin, Frances Cornford; and Roderick Williams’ own distinctive take on William Blake’s The Shepherd.

The 30-song recital includes songs by RVW’s teachers (Stanford, Parry, Wood, Bruch, Ravel), friends (Holst, Gurney, Howells, Butterworth, Finzi and others), and pupils (Grace Williams, Ina Boyle, Ruth Gipps, Elizabeth Maconchy and Madeleine Dring). Vaughan Williams’ biographer Simon Heffer provides authoritative booklet notes.

SOMM’s previous Vaughan Williams releases include the widely acclaimed four-volume Vaughan Williams Live series (SOMM ARIADNE 5016, 5018, 5019-2, 5020); Mark Bebbington and Rebeca Omordia’s “compelling” (International Piano) survey of his Piano Music (SOMMCD 0164); and the “priceless document” (MusicWeb International) coupling the Fifth Symphony and Dona nobis pace (SOMMCD 071).

Roderick Williams and Susie Allan’s previous SOMM releases include Celebrating English Song (SOMMCD 0177), lauded by Gramophone as “a treat”; the Ivor Gurney-focused Severn & Somme (SOMM 057), “strongly recommended” by BBC Music Magazine; and Somervell’s A Shropshire Lad and Maud (SOMMCD 0615), “performances of much beauty, empathy and sensitivity” (British Music Society).

Scott Robert Shaw's debut "The English Tenor" takes us on a beautifully performed journey through a who's who of great English composers and their vocal works. The names Ivor Gurney, Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi and Roger Quilter are synonymous with English Song, and a Golden Age of British music. The wide variety of accompanying instruments and artists, the broad range of text settings and the mix of cornerstone works of the repertoire alongside lesser-known cycles make "The English Tenor" a thrilling debut album.

A product of the English church music tradition, Australian born Scott Robert Shaw has been performing works in this oeuvre since childhood. Whether on the operatic or oratorio stage, as an ensemble singer or soloist, his deep cultural roots to the British music world are laid bare for all to see. This deeply personal album stands as testament to his background, and as a homecoming to his earliest steps as artist.

Beginning his career and training as a boy soprano at the St George’s Cathedral Perth Choir, Scott attended the McDonald College of the Performing Arts in Sydney, studying music and acting in the Stanislawksy/Laban tradition, awarded a full scholarship for Excellence in Performance. He then attended the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and was given the Most Exceptional Contribution to the Arts award from Wesley College, University of Sydney. In London he continued his studies with the English National Opera’s Baylis Programme for young performers and was regularly engaged to perform as a recitalist and operatic tenor in festivals and opera companies in both the United Kingdom and France. He then completed his studies at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague where he studied Early Music and Classical Singing, and now based in Düsseldorf, is regularly engaged as a soloist in The Netherlands and Germany, with a particular focus on Bach oratorios and Evangelist roles in the Passions.

“Inspirations and imaginings, evolving, changing English usage, landscapes, friendships and passings lie behind this album... Loosely, the songs we’ve selected embrace multiple interpre- tations and nuances of ‘divine’. As well as, I could argue, that sentiment of English song and English speaking composers embodying the [Blake/Parry] ‘Jerusalem-Builded-Here’ trope. The world I came from (singing in choir stalls), along with how countertenors are perceived generally, has been hard to escape. So here perhaps I’m taking on the challenge. As well as an opportunity to include songs written for me that for some while I’ve been needing to put down on disc.” (Iestyn Davies) ‘Divine Music’ marks Iestyn Davies’ third recital album on Signum Classics. The ‘Four Songs’ (Purcell/ Adès), Spoons Aria (Adès), Four Traditional Songs and Old Bones (Muhly) are world premiere recordings. Muhly’s Four Traditional Songs were also written dedicated to Iestyn Davies.

REVIEW:

It’s lovely to hear Butterworth’s Shropshire Lad songs in this pairing, a countertenor voice adding a wan fragility to ‘Is my team ploughing?’ and a wistful sense of perpetual youth and innocence to ‘The lads in their hundreds’.

-- Gramophone

Time and again, composers – well-known and lesser-known – have arranged Franz Schubert's piano songs for orchestra. These versions are not in any way intended to cast doubt upon the powerful quality of the originals, they merely place them in a different light, and/or attempt to make them easier to perform on a larger scale – when an art song cannot be performed in an intimate salon or chamber music hall, it can also make an impact in a large concert hall.

Baritone Benjamin Appl has compiled nineteen such arrangements from the 19th and 20th centuries for this new CD from BR-KLASSIK. The Münchner Rundfunkorchester, conducted by Oscar Jockel, provides accompaniment that is subtle and in keeping with the work. The album is ultimately rounded off by the first recording of Johann von Herbeck’s orchestrations of Schubert's dances, thus establishing a connection between folk music and Schubert's art songs.

Intriguing vocal works by Brahms, Fauré, Beach, Price, Barber and others, sung by an up-and-coming tenor of great promise.