The award-winning East Carolina University Chamber Singers, under the direction of James Franklin, perform a nuanced musical meditation of hopeful celebration and comfort. The album represents a journey through a period of silence; isolation gives way to the sounds of voices singing.

British mezzo-soprano and BBC New Generation Artist Helen Charlston and pianist Sholto Kynoch present their take on Robert Schumann's famous song cycle Dichterliebe (A Poet's Love), based on poems by early 19th-century German poet Heinrich Heine. The sixteen songs express the birth of love, wonder, fragility in the face of love, emotions and nuances, wounds, sorrow, nostalgia, dreams, tears, betrayal, pain, consolation, and death. The music conveys all the misfortunes that the poet had to face, as if a mirror image existed between the poet and Schumann. This release also features other songs based on texts by Heine, demonstrating the German poet's popularity with Austro-German composers of the early nineteenth century. Songs by Carl Loewe, Josephine Lang, Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, and Felix Mendelssohn complete this exploration of Heine's poetry. In addition to Schumann's cycle, the other highlight of this recital is the first recording of a work commissioned by Helen Charlston from composer (and singer) Héloïse Werner: Knight's Dream, also based on a text by Heine, and conceived as a companion piece for Dichterliebe. Imaginative and daring, this new work is both a tribute and a playful dialogue with Schumann and Heine, bringing the past and present together in a lyrical conversation.

During our 2022 Continuo Foundation-supported tour of music from the manuscripts of Margaret of Austria (1480-1530), which we entitled Epitaph for a Green Lover, it became clear that there was keen demand for the programme. After every performance of this beautiful and unrepresented music, the audience asked if we had made a recording; in the end, we took heed. Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy, Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands, was a great patron of the arts who loved to dance and sing. But, above all, she loved her green parrot. Our programme's title comes from the remarkable chanson Soubz ce tumbel with it's tragic text by Margaret's court poet, Jean Lemaire de Belges. In this song, we find a text drawn from de Belges's Epitaphe de l'Amant Vert, in which the amant vert ('green lover') refers to the beloved green parrot. This chanson, along with all the songs featured on this album, come from the two extant songbooks, or chansonniers, of Margaret of Austria, which are now housed in the Brussels Royal Library. Alongside the songbooks, Margaret's library consisted of over 350 treasures, including the Très Riches Heures de duc de Berry, the Sforza Hours, and an exquisitely decorated book of basse dances on black-stained vellum with silver and gold calligraphy. Such a collection gives a sense of how Margaret was a linchpin in Renaissance culture. Our aim is to transport the modern-day listener to Margaret of Austria's court through music. Our programme even allows us to give insight into her character, since some of her own poetry was set to music by her favourite musicians; we have featured a selection on this album. We have had such pleasure exploring this music and sharing it with audiences in concert, and are thrilled to now bring this stunning repertoire to listeners through this recording. © The Linarol Consort

Le Souvenir (Canadian Songs for Parlour and Stage)

SZYMANOWSKI: Songs with Orchestra

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MILAN / VALDERRABANO / MUDARRA / SANZ / STEFANI: Love and Ad

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