John Pickard: Songs for Voice and Piano

The English composer John Pickard (b. 1963) is best known for a series of powerful orchestral works, five symphonies among them. But this album of songs – his complete output for voice and piano to date – demonstrates that he can generate drama on a smaller scale, too. These settings – of two less familiar poets of the First World War, often exploring man’s relationship with nature, and a translation of a ninth-century Anglo-Saxon phantasmagorical allegory – encompass a wide range of moods, requiring soaring vocal lines, declamatory authority and the gentlest intimacy, supported by piano textures that can are up in freewheeling virtuosity.

Roderick Williams, baritone (Tracks 1-5, 7-15)
Eve Daniell, soprano (Track 6)
Simon Lepper, piano