Five songs from Finzi’s incomparable Let us Garlands Bring see the tenor’s head voice floating sympathetically through the melismatic vowels and ever-shifting metres of Finzi’s most sensitive inflection of Shakespeare’s verse…Pappano’s accompanying [is] as vigorous as Bostridge’s rhythmic definition. I particularly enjoyed their partnership and Bostridge’s nicely understated ‘Desdemona’s Song’ from Korngold’s still undersung setting

As anniversary tributes go, this is a good one...Bostridge’s sensitivity to text and ability to spin a line right through even the densest of consonant clusters makes for a compelling collection that is strongest in contemporary repertoire.

he is one of the rare singers who really relish their own language...His range is immense: he is at his best in settings with lute accompaniment...Nothing is lovelier, or more touching, than When That I Was and a Little Tiny Boy, which he closes with an exquisite diminuendo.

This is worth having for the first track alone: an impeccable account of Finzi’s Come Away, Death, with Ian Bostridge blending melancholy and nonchalance, Antonio Pappano accompanying with tender reticence...[Bostridge] squeezes every nuance of meaning from these Shakespeare settings.

The music is never less than rich, and is often pleasingly strange...Bostridge is beautifully accompanied by the lutenist Elizabeth Kenny, and the two reach a peak of intensity in the Johnson’s Full Fathom Five.