Geoffrey Bush was encouraged in his musical talents by Sir Thomas Armstrong and received informal lessons from the composer John Ireland.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Geoffrey Bush's approach to songwriting involved thoroughly absorbing a poem to enrich the original through music, rather than just 'putting a poem to music'.
Performer Biography
Simon Wallfisch, the baritone on this recording, began playing the cello at age 5 and studied both cello and voice at the Royal College of Music.
Performer Biography
Edward Rushton, the pianist, studied piano and composition at Chetham's School of Music and later at King's College, Cambridge, and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.
Composer Biography
Geoffrey Bush, the composer, was a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral and later studied at Lancing College and Oxford, where he read Classics as music was not an undergraduate subject.
Composition History
The Spring Songs were commissioned in 1944 while Geoffrey Bush, a pacifist, was working at the Hostel of the Good Shepherd in Tredegar, looking after children evacuated from London during the blitz.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Geoffrey Bush's wide knowledge of other composers' song settings, from Arne to Parry and Elgar, helped shape his own songwriting voice.
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