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.

Baritone. This volume contains French operatic arias for baritone from works that opera reformer Christoph Willibald Gluck was commissioned to compose for the Paris Opéra: ?Iphigénie en Aulide? (1774) | ?Cythère assiégée? (1775) | ?Alceste? (1776) | ?Armide? (1777) | ?Iphigénie en Tauride? (1779). The informative text sections contain a Foreword (Fr/Eng), a brief account of the dramatic context and a literal English translation of each aria. About the series: Christoph Willibald Gluck: French Operatic Arias. For the first time all the arias from Christoph Willibald Gluck?s French operas are being published in arrangements for voice and piano. This series, a coproduction with the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles (CMBV), presents this collection according to voice register in four volumes. With their wealth of arias and informative texts, these volumes offer a rich treasure-trove from works by this major 18th-century opera composer for use in voice lessons, auditions and recitals.

Baritone-Operatic AriasBased on the Opera Omnia Rameau (OOR) This edition contains the great monologues arias and ariettas that Rameau wrote for basse-taille (the 18th-century equivalent of today’s baritone). The volume which contains a historical Introduction in German and English is based on the critical edition of the works Opera omnia Rameau (OOR). A short description of the dramatic situation and an English translation of the vocal text precede each number. The volume contains the baritone arias for the main characters from the following operas: Anacréon (Anacréon)Castor et Pollux (Pollux)Dardanus (Anténor)Les Fêtes de Polymnie (Zimès)Hippolyte et Aricie (Thésée)Les Indes galantes (Bellone Huascar Adario)Naïs (Tirésie)La Naissance d’Osiris (le grand Prêtre)Nélée et Myrthis (Nélée)Les Paladins (Orcan Anselme)La Princesse de Navarre (un Français)Les Surprises de l’amour (Anacréon Astole)Le Temple de la Gloire (l’Envie)Zoroastre (Abramane)

Composer's Notes:Heavenly Things is my fourteenth song-cycle but the first with piano accompaniment. I mention this because when I was asked to write this piece my first reaction was ‘what can I make of amedium that seems to me quintessentially 19th century’ and I was doubtful that I could produce anything that I would be happy with. Then I went to hear Christopher Maltman and Malcolm Martineau and was so impressed by the magicand intensity of their performance that I saw a ‘way in’ to what at first had seemed a problem. The choice of poems was obviously going to be crucial and I chose the Donne Holy Sonnets because of the dramatic possibilities theyoffer and the huge range of emotion that they encompass. In these settings the piano is always more than a mere accompaniment it tends either to be in dialogue with the voice or to have its own musical agenda which the voicereacts to in an independent but parallel way. Geoffrey Burgon