Britten: Songs: Volume 1 [2 CD set]

"Martineau paces his survey of Britten's songbook with the same lightly worn expertise he brings to his accompaniments, alternating lighter and darker material, innocent and knowing, in a way that maintains the listener's interest."
(Financial Times)

"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 I...Perhaps the best is left until last, when Robin Tritschler gives a fresh-sounding Winter Words."
(Sunday Times)

"The John Donne sonnets (Ben Johnson) and The Poet's Echo (Katherine Broderick) are very fine, but the most compelling track is "Canticle 1", a masterpiece powerfully delivered by Andrew Tortise."
(Observer)

"James Geer, a tenor with an instinct for the inflection of poetry that matches the composer's own, offers 'A Dirge'...Katherine Broderick brings by turns a forlorn beauty and a fiery plangency to the Pushkin settings of The Poet's Echo...We have a tiny and tantalising glimpse of tenor Nicky Spence...O that I had ne'er been married...a touching and memorable gem within this auspicious first volume."
(BBC Music)

"Among so many potential successors to Peter Pears...two tenors stand out: Robin Tritschler, who gives a performance of exceptional tenderness in the ever-popular Winter Words, and Ben Johnson, whose string and intense singing of the Holy Sonnets of John Donne nails his colours to the Britten mast with impressive authority...As always, Malcolm Martineau's accompaniments are a constant source of inspiration on the journey."
(Gramophone)