NEW ALBUM OF WAR SONGS BY OLIVIER AND GRAMOPHONE AWARD-WINNING BARITONE SIMON KEENLYSIDE

“The world’s greatest lyric baritone” (BBC Music Magazine)
“In a league of his own” (The Sunday Telegraph)

Just as his Gramophone Award-winning debut recording for Sony Classical, 'Tales of Opera', featured a personal selection of the singer's favourite arias, so the eagerly-anticipated 'Songs of War' incorporates Keenlyside’s hand-picked selection of war songs that reflect such universal themes as fear, yearning, loss, restlessness, homesickness and love.

Simon Keenlyside has provided the sleeve notes himself for this album, displaying his own personal thoughts on the compositions, poetry and subject matter. The album’s cover image, provided by the Imperial War Museum, is a photograph of a soldier from WW1 writing a letter home, reflecting the album’s themes of longing and homesickness. Full song texts are included in the booklet.

R E V I E W S:

"Despite the title, most of the songs in this admirable collection are anything but warlike. There is no place for patriotic bombast here; instead, these polished miniatures yearn for a vanished pastoral England and express nobly romantic notions of love, fidelity and the human spirit. Vaughan Williams, Butterworth, Gurney, Ireland, Warlock and Somervell are all represented, but Simon Keenlyside and Malcolm Martineau do not limit themselves to England's whimsical finest, finding room for astringent examples from Ned Rorem and Kurt Weill as well. It's a beautifully judged recording, exquisitely sung; poignant but never sentimental."

-- Stephen Pritchard, The Observer (UK) [12/11/2011]