The second volume in the highly praised survey of all Britten’s songs for voice and piano. As before, the great song cycles rub shoulders with individual songs and early works. There are world premiere recordings here as well.

Malcolm Martineau has gathered together the cream of young British singers, and this second volume will be as eagerly awaited and successful as the first.

Philip Reid’s excellent booklet notes provide an incisive insight to Britten’s song writing – a form of composition that occupied the composer from his earliest compositions through to his last year.

World premiere recordings of Dans le Bois, Of all the airts the wind can blow and Oh why did e’er my thoughts.

Total time: 134.00 minutes

‘Masterful… an excellent set’ - BBC Radio 3 – CD Review 02.07.2011

‘For this first volume of Britten's collected songs, Martineau has gathered a gratifyingly formidable array of young British singing talent. Ben Johnson is commanding in an urgent passionate reading of The Holy Sonnets of John Donne. Andrew Tortise conveys rapturously intense emotions in Canticle 1, ‘My Beloved is Mine’, as personal an expression of the composer’s love for Peter Pears as anything he wrote. Perhaps the best is left until last, when Robin Tritschler gives a fresh-sounding ‘Winter Words’.’ - Sunday Times **** 29.05.2011

‘This series promises to be a major addition to the Britten discography.’ - Gramophone