Benjamin Britten:
Winter Words, Op. 52:
No. 1, At Day-Close in November
No. 2, Midnight on the Great Western “The Journeying Boy”
No. 3, Wagtail and Baby “A Satire”
No. 4, The Little Old Table
No. 5, The Choirmaster’s Burial “The Tenor Man’s Story”
No. 6, Proud Songsters “Thrushes, Finches and Nightingales”
No. 7, At the Railway Station, Upway “The Convict and Boy with the Violin”
No. 8, Before Life and After
Sally in our Alley
The Ploughboy
The Last Rose of Summer
How Sweet the Answer
Ca’ the Yowes
Oliver Cromwell

Imogen Holst:
4 Songs:
No. 1, Brittle Beauty
No. 2, Why fearest thou thy outward foe?
No. 3, Shall I thus ever long?
No. 4, As lawrell leaves
Little think’st thou
Weathers

Daniel Kidane:
Songs of Illumination:
No. 1, A Dream
No. 2, The Land of Dreams
No. 3, The Little Black Boy

‘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.