George Butterworth:
A Shropshire Lad:
No. 1, Loveliest of Trees
No. 3, Look Not Into My Eyes
No. 2, When I Was One and Twenty
No. 5, The Lads in Their Hundreds
No. 6, Is My Team Ploughing?

Ivor Gurney:
Black Stitchel
Severn Meadows
In Flanders

Arthur Somervell:
A Shropshire Lad, IAS 20:
No. 6, On the Idle Hill of Summer
No. 7, White in the Moon
No. 8, Think no More, Lad
No. 9, Into my Heart an air that kills

Gustav Mahler:
Des Knaben Wunderhorn:
Wo die Schoenen Trompeten Blasen
Revelge

Gabriel Fauré:
Les Berceaux, Op. 32 No. 1

Charles Ives:
Three Songs of War - No. 2, He is There!

Modest Mussorgsky:
Songs and Dances of Death - No. 4, The Field-Marshall

Robert Schumann:
Die beiden Grenadiere, Op. 49 No. 1
Der Soldat, Op. 40 No. 3

Hugo Wolf:
Mörike-Lieder - No. 5, Der Tambour

Gerald Finzi:
Before and After Summer, Op. 16 - No. 5, Channel Firing

Francis Pouelnc:
La Courte Paille, FP. 178 - No. 7, Lune d’Avril

John Ireland:
We’ll To The Woods No More - No. 2, In Boyhood

The programme performed here by baritone Christopher Maltman and pianist Joseph Middleton was born whilst Maltman was studying at the Royal Academy of Music. The compositions have been selected to form a coherent but flexible narrative that produces a touching memoire to all those affected by war.

One composer chosen for the record, George Butterworth, was a casualty of the First World War: in September 1915 he went to the trenches and was killed, aged 31, in the Battle of the Somme on 5th August 1916. The use of his composition, A Shropshire Lad, is touching in this instance. It gives the listener a more sensitive perspective of the loss in World War One, almost allowing the listener to see the faces of those who passed away, most of whom were young ‘lads’ from various parts of the country.

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Recorded in Potton Hall, Westleton, Suffolk, UK from 3rd to 5th September 2018.