George Butterworth
George Butterworth (1885–1916) was an English composer best known for his song settings from A Shropshire Lad and the orchestral idyll The Banks of Green Willow.
His six songs from A. E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad remain among the most enduring English art songs of the early twentieth century. On Move they appear in recital programmes including A Shropshire Lad (MD 3231) and I Heard You Singing (MCD 470).
A keen folk-song collector and morris dancer, he gathered hundreds of traditional melodies that shaped his spare, pastoral style. He was awarded the Military Cross and was killed on the Somme in 1916.
Compositions by George Butterworth appear on
A Shropshire Lad
Baritone Blake Fischer and pianist Claire Cooper, winners of the 1998 Song Recital Award, present English and American folk, traditional and art songs by Butterworth, Copland, Finzi and Britten.
I Heard You Singing: Songs My Father Taught Me
Baritone Jonathan Morton's first solo album is a personal programme of English art song, drawn from cycles and favourites his father once sang around the family piano.