A Century of English Song - Volume II is a superb anthology that comprises ten 20th-century choral pieces for voice and Piano accompaniment. It is an authoratative edition that has been published in collaboration with The Association of English Singers and Speakers. The series includes songs by talented and distinctive composers who may be little known outside specialist circles not just popular and well known writers. The pieces are enjoyable and expressive and will help increase appreciation for the English Song genre. This is the second volume in the A Century of English Song series and contains ten songs for Baritone voice and Piano edited byMichael Pilkington.

The subtitle of this work dedicated to Christian Gerhaher, '23 sentences by Nikolaus Lenau', should be taken literally: some of the texts in Heinz Holliger's setting consist of only a few words. With relentless focus on essential elements, the texts are a distillation of the sensation which has been recorded in literary history as 'world-weariness'. Holliger reflects this concentrated emotion, presenting the singer and pianist with the highest level of technical demands within an extremely limited space, never as an end in itself but always as means to an extreme compression of musical and emotional expression. / Baryton Et Piano