Ian Venables is one of Britain’s foremost composers of art-song, and has a significant catalogue of vocal and chamber music to his credit. Writing tonal music in a warm lyric vein, he has a rare gift of being able to ‘locate’ himself, believably, in a different period and absorb from it, both musically and poetically, all its fundamental beauty, while also producing works of astonishing freshness, naturalness and originality. On the Wings of Love are settings by non-English poets, while Love’s Voice sets Venetian poetry by J.A. Symonds. All his songs are sincere expressions of a love of poetry, combined with a profound understanding of musical and poetic tradition.