Métier is delighted to present Love, Friendship and Longing on digital EP, a strikingly beautiful collection of songs for four voices and piano four hands set to Tang Dynasty poetry, from Beijing-based composer Nicholas Michael Smith. The singers are acclaimed 20^th and 21^st century specialists Mimi Doulton (soprano), versatile mezzo-soprano Susan Legg who performed in the world premiere of this work at Cadogan Hall, rising tenor Ben Hancox-Lachman, and experienced recitalist and champion of British song Christopher Foster (bass-baritone). They are accompanied by the multi-award-winning, China-based pianist Shen Yue, and the esteemed pianist and vocal coach William Hancox. The poems are sung in Mandarin, and English translations are by Vikram Seth, Andrew Andreasen, and Nicholas Michael Smith himself.

Smith was inspired to write these songs after witnessing how popular Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes were when working in a chamber music programme in Peking and wondering if he could create a set of Chinese love songs with the same forces Brahms used. Love, Friendship and Longing also marks 25 years of the Chopsticks Club, a hugely influential network committed to China-UK engagement, bringing people together across cultures through shared experiences, connections, and friendship. The work is dedicated to Smith’s friends, the director-founders H-J Colston-Inge and Theresa Booth.

The themes of these songs – love, friendship, and longing – resonate profoundly with that journey of 25 years. They speak not only to the emotional world of Tang poetry but also to the lived experience of those who have crossed cultures: the forging of friendships, the distance from home, and the enduring ties that connect people across time and place. Grouped into four sections, these evocative songs range in moods from tender and reflective to more passionate and dramatic, some tinged with sadness and regret, but all deeply moving. Drawing on the richness of Tang poetry—widely regarded as the high point of Chinese literary expression—the composer brings together voices from different classical traditions, both Chinese and Western, in a way that feels both authentic and newly imagined.

Nicholas Michael Smith has lived and worked in China for over thirty years, and in 2011 was awarded an OBE in recognition of his services to music and to UK-China relations. Among his achievements has been presenting the Chinese premiere of Handel’s Messiah and setting up several choirs and orchestras. Smith’s long engagement with China, his friendships formed there in the early 1990s, and his collaboration with scholars of Chinese literature all contributed to the shaping of this work. Smith’s delightful narrated orchestral work The Girl from the French Fort, based on a children’s story by acclaimed Chinese author Hong Ying, was released on the Métier label earlier this year. “It is refreshing, tuneful, dreamy. It feels pure and true…Smith’s music is very descriptive, tuneful, and listenable.” Musicweb International.