Available at www.smarturl.it/bostridgebritten
Ian Bostridge has recorded a programme of songs by Benjamin Britten as part of EMI Classics' commemoration of the composer's centenary. The disc features first recordings by Bostridge of the Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Sechs Hölderlin-Fragmente, Songs from the Chinese, Winter Words and four English songs from the late cycle Who are these Children? At the piano for all but Songs from the Chinese is fellow EMI artist Antonio Pappano, with whom Bostridge has previously recorded Schubert's Schwanengesang and Wolf lieder. In Songs from the Chinese, Bostridge collaborates with another EMI artist, the guitarist Xuefei Yang.
"My love for Britten goes way back to when I was seven. He wrote a lot of wonderful music for children," Bostridge says. "I was a rat in Noye's Fludde. ... and then I did The Golden Vanity at school and A Ceremony of Carols. I did a lot of Britten as a child and it was in my blood. Then I left it when I was in my 20s. I discovered the songs because I came across an LP of The Holy Sonnets of John Donne in my local record library and I was completely blown away by them. That is when I discovered that Britten was a great lieder writer. ... I have sung these songs for a long time. These are songs that are in my repertoire that I have recorded for the first time.