Songs before Sleep (2002)

[Iain] Burnside accompanied the bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu in Bennett’s 2002 Songs before sleep: six nursey rhymes, grave and gay – and sometimes, with their dark gashes of violence, so politically incorrect that the audience could only chuckle with embarrassed laughter. Bennett, Burnside and Lemalu, though, were fearless in their responses.

...a substantial world premiere: fabulous settings of six nursery rhymes - Songs Before Sleep - delivered by the scoreless and wonderfully convincing Jonathan Lemalu. A real treat.

(Bennett) is a wonderfully natural lyric composer. His Songs Before Sleep were written for the rapidly rising Jonathan Lemalu, and these six settings with piano of texts from the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes fit the young baritone's easy, honeyed voice like a glove … The highlight was his version of the full text of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, conceived as an exquisite, dreamy ballad, which Lemalu floated magically.