English composer Benjamin Britten was one of the most prolific song composers of the 20th century, that said his song cycles were an important part of his body of work. This year is in honour of Britten’s 100th Birthday, in celebration of the anniversary, Ian Bostridge has recorded the new recordings on EMI & Virgin Classics. The disc features first recordings by Bostridge of  Seven sonnets of Michelangelo, Holderlin Fragments, Songs From the Chinese, Winter Words and Four English Songs from the last cycle Who are These Children. Accompanied by Anotnio Pappano playing piano, and Xuefei Yang playing guitar. “It is interesting for me working with Tony on these songs,” Bostridge says. “ because we have done the mainstream lieder repertoire together. We have recorded Schubert’s Schwanengesang, Wolf lieder, composers who were incredibly important to Britten. He performed them a lot in recitals with Peter Pears. In a way, he is the last composer who wrote in that tradition.”

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