Breathing new life into Irish song

Art song occupies a hallowed place in classical music. The combination of poetry and music, singer and pianist striving to enhance the poet’s text is considered by many the pinnacle of musical endeavours.

The 19th German composers had a penchant for writing evocative piano accompaniments to their friends’ poems. So much so that with thousands of songs by Schubert and his contemporaries in the repertoire, ‘lied’, the German word for song has long being synonymous with the term ‘art song’.