Compassion

A Second World War song cycle, with texts by a pair of poets who died unconscionably young in the war. The cycle remembers one lover in paricular. It took Tippett five years to write the cycle, devastated by the suicid of his great friend Francesca Allinson. Tippet's sexuality made him unable to reciprocate her passion. Text by 19 year old Alun Lewis. Compassion is the centrepiece of the cycle. An an unashamedly sexual centrepiece it is too, the tenor mounting to a phallic top B to invoke the god-faced centaur.
With English pianist Iain Burnside.
Music Web International Recording of the Year 2006: 'This is a lovely CD'; Gramophone: outstanding; International Record Review: outstanding.