Following the success of A Yiddish Winterreise, Mark Glanville and Alexander Knapp have teamed up again to give us their interpretation of Schubert's other great song cycle with its theme of unrequited love. Once again Glanville has forged a narrative cycle out of songs from the traditional Yiddish repertoire, to replicate the emotional journey of the Schubertian original. Eight of the songs are given in characteristically sensitive but individual arrangements by Knapp entirely in keeping with the spirit of the original melody. The cycle also includes one original composition by Knapp, a setting of Himen ("Anthem") by Abraham Sutzkever in the year of the great poet's death. The humor, tenderness and sheer humanity of a great culture on the eve of its tragic demise are given new life in this cycle, the perfect complement to A Yiddish Winterreise.

The bass-baritone Mark Glanville read Classics and Philosophy at Oxford University before going on to study singing at the Royal Northern College of Music and the National Opera Studio, making his début with Opera North. Roles for that company include The King of Clubs (Love for Three Oranges), the King (Aida), Nourabad (The Pearl Fishers) and Father (The Jewel Box). For Scottish Opera he has sung the Commendatore (Don Giovanni), for Lisbon Opera, New Israeli Opera and Opera Zuid The King of Clubs, and for Opera Omaha Ferrando (Il trovatore). On the concert platform he has performed as bass soloist with Yehudi Menuhin, Daniele Gatti, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Sir David Willcocks and Stanisław Skrowaczewski. Recordings include Donizetti's L'assedio di Calais and Anna Bolena and Schubert's Mass in G. His memoir The Goldberg Variations was shortlisted for the Wingate Prize for Jewish Literature and the National Sporting Club Award.

Alexander Knapp is a freelance musician, musicologist and ethnomusicologist. He graduated from Selwyn College, Cambridge, UK, with MA, MusB, and PhD degrees in music, and has also been awarded ARCM, LRAM and HonARAM diplomas. From the late 1960s to the present day, he has published and/or lectured in the UK, the USA, many parts of Western and Eastern Europe, Israel, Western Russia, Eastern Siberia, and China, on the subject of Jewish and related musics. As well as composing, arranging, conducting, broadcasting, and performing as pianist in the UK, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Russia and the USA, Alex has been involved as consultant and accompanist to cantors and choirs on several commercial recordings of Jewish music. His set of Four Sephardi Songs (arranged for voice and piano) was published by Transcontinental in New York in 1992; and his Elegy for String Orchestra was published in Jerusalem in 1997. Among numerous other articles, he has contributed entries on aspects of Jewish music to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Second Edition). Alex has been appointed to academic and administrative positions at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and at London's Goldsmiths' College, Royal College of Music, and City University. From 1999 until taking early retirement in October 2006, he held the Joe Loss Lectureship in Jewish Music at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies.

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