Songs from the Chinese Poets

Songs from the Chinese Poets are series of settings in six parts by Granville Bantock.

[1] The English song texts were mainly supplied by Captain L. A. Cranmer Byng (1872-1945), who had also supplied the text for Choral Suite from the Chinese (1914).

Launcelot Alfred Cranmer-Byng was part of the Byng baronets family and wrote various books on China.

[2] In 1933 the first set were also arranged in the form of a four movement string quartet under the title In a Chinese Mirror.

Songs from the Chinese Poets, Series VI John McCormack (tenor) recorded "Desolation" in Australia in 1927.