Quickening: new songs to texts by British poets

The advance copies of the CDs have arrived and look very handsome, and all have been sent out to supporters. I am currently busy writing the manuscript copies of the songs for the other rewards.

Christina Rossetti was the youngest daughter of Gabriele Rossetti, a poet and a political exile from Abruzzo in Italy, and Frances Polidori, the sister of Lord Byron's friend and physician, John William Polidori. One of Christina’s elder brothers was the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whilst her other brother William…

For this article I start looking at the poet and composer, Ivor Gurney, four of whose poems are part of my song cycle Four Songs to Texts by Ivor Gurney which, performed by Johnny Herford and William Vann, is on our new disc Quickening: Songs to texts by English and Welsh…

In my previous update, I talked about the poet AE Housman's unrequited passion for his friend from university days, Moses Jackson and how this single relationship seems to have coloured Housman's emotional life. His later poems feature in my song cycle Four Songs to Texts by AE Housman and in…

AE Housman's poems feature in my song cycle Four Songs to Texts by AE Housman and in my song When Summer's end is nighing. Baritone Johnny Herford and pianist William Vann perform both works on the new disc of my songs, Quickening, for which we are currently crowd-funding.Housman's most famous poems come…