A friend of Vaughan Williams, George Butterworth was killed in 1916 in the Battle of the Somme, one of the ‘lads that will die in their hundreds and never grow old’, as Housman’s poignant Shropshire Lad poetry foretold.
Continuing in pastoral mood, Schubert’s great song cycle, the first of its kind, tells the story of an apprentice miller’s unrequited love for his employer’s daughter.
German baritone Benjamin Appl is a member of the BBC New Generation Artists scheme and was mentored by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
Piano kindly provided by Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts