Ann Murray DBE
mezzo-soprano
John Mark Ainsley
tenor
Robin Tritschler
tenor
Marcus Farnsworth
baritone
Malcolm Martineau
piano
Britten and Pears gave the first public performance of Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo at Wigmore Hall in September 1943. The work includes one of the composer’s finest songs, his coruscating setting of Michelangelo’s metaphysical poem ‘Veggio co’ bei vostri occhi un dolce lume’.
This programme spans the creative course of Britten’s song-writing career, opening with a sequence drawn from his many fabulous folksong arrangements and including The Poet’s Echo, a cycle of Pushkin settings written during a holiday visit to the Soviet Union in 1965.
Supported by the Britten-Pears Foundation.
