BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913-1976): Songs and Proverbs of William Blake, Tit for Tat, Lemady, She's like the wallow, I wonder as I wander, Tom Bowling, Um Mitternacht, A Poison Tree, Evening, Morning, Night, David of the White Rock, Greensleeves, The Crocodile, The Deaf Woman's Courtship, Bird Scarer's Song.

Description: Written in 1965 for Fischer-Dieskau, the 20-minute cycle of Songs and Proverbs is an uncompromisingly somber work in which Britten uses some of the twelve-tone techniques he'd recently employed in The Turn of the Screw. Completely opposite to this is the rest of the recital, from the de la Mare Tit for Tat settings, youthful works Britten collected as a five-song cycle in 1968, and a handful of early one-offs and folk-like settings. Texts included. Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano).