Purcell: Nymphs and Shepherds, Z600

This new disc on Bridge presents songs by some of the greatest masters of the art of setting poetry to music. With the exception of Purcell's songs, the repertoire heard here grows out of the 19th century German Romantic Lied tradition.

Soprano Georgine Resick and pianist Warren Jones have collaborated on several discs for Bridge in the past and are known for their fascinating thematic programming. This recital follows in that tradition, showing unusual contrasts and similarities between diverse repertoire.

This ‘songbook’ is unique to the Schola Cantorum choristers of Tewkesbury Abbey. “Essentially, it’s a showcase for the Abbey trebles,” their Director of Music Benjamin Nicholas explains. “We’ve been assembling our own 'Songbook' for quite a while now – the songs the trebles sing, from time to time, in boys-only concerts, and which they are taught in individual singing lessons. I’ve always been keen to build each boy up as a soloist, not necessarily with the express idea of them singing lots of solos, but so that they can learn to sing in a soloistic way.”

This is evident most of all in the distinctive singing of 11-year-old Laurence Kilsby, whose gifts won him the BBC Chorister of the Year competition in 2009. On this recording, he features as soloist in two Shelley settings by Roger Quilter, the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria and in John Ireland’s beautiful, sincerely-felt Passiontide motet Ex Ore Innocentium from 1944.