Ode to a Nightingale- new composition by Will Todd

[herts]

Hertfordshire Chorus: Barbican Concert - 11th May 2011
The concert includes the world première of Will Todd’s Ode to a Nightingale, commissioned by Hertfordshire Chorus. Will says: “This is a poem which pulsates with romantic imagery and emotion – death, fantasy, love, hope and despair all embraced in rich and beautiful language. Keats’ short but emotion-filled life pours off the page in these eight stanzas, and the effect of reading the poem leaves you with a sense of being on an amazing and emotive journey through fantastical places and ideas, coming finally to rest on the realisation of mortality. It’s like a symphony in words. Like the poem, the music has different moods. There are soft harmonies and more urgent ones; quiet reflective moments and massive climactic gestures. The solo violin weaves in and out of the choral textures like a muse, leading the music forward towards the central moment of the poem, ‘now more than ever seems it rich to die’. There are big orchestral colours and very thin and eerie ones. Like the poem I have sought to use a rich harmonic and textural language.”

Also in this concert:

Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem is less a mass for the dead than a means of release from sorrow for survivors - whether of bereavement or other sadness. Despite its melancholy provenance, it is one of the most popular and moving works in the choral repertoire. Schumann - Brahms’ mentor - whose attempted suicide, death and wife were stimuli to its composition, anticipated its power when he predicted “When he lowers his magic wand on the masses of choir and orchestra whose powers endow him with strength, we shall await wondrous glimpses into the world of the spirit”.



Finally, Eadweard Muybridge murdered his wife’s lover. Philip Glass’ A Gentleman’s Honor (arr. Jeremy Marchant) is taken from his Music-Drama The Photographer about Muybridge’s life. The words are from the trial transcript, comments of spectators at the trial and letters of Muybridge to his wife Flora.

Wednesday 11th May 2011 at 7.30 pm
Barbican Hall
Silk Street
London

Katherine Watson soprano
Ashley Riches baritone
Hertfordshire Chorus
London Orchestra da Camera
David Temple conducting


TICKETS
£24 (£20 concession)
£19 (£16 concession)
£15 (£12 concession)
£9 (no concession)
£6 child/student/jobseeker

Tickets are available now directly from Hertfordshire Chorus via telephone or email:

Telephone 0870 4580445 (24 hours, no booking fee)
Email tickets@hertfordshirechorus.org.uk (please include a phone number - no booking fee)

Tickets are also available from the Barbican box office via telephone or online:

Telephone 020 7638 8891 (booking fee applies)
http://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event- ... p?ID=11538 (reduced booking fee applies)

[Saturn]

Sounds like a wonderful program, are you going to this yourself?

[Raphael]

It sounds great -would go myself if lived in London!

[BrokenLyre]

I would go in a heartbeat. Why can't we ever get this kind of thing in America?

[Fragment]

I would go in a heartbeat. Why can't we ever get this kind of thing in America?

I'm sure we do, but either I can't afford it, or I can't find it. :/

[BrokenLyre]

Maybe so... But I'd have to travel I guess..

[Raphael]

Well, no good to me miles away from London either Broken Lyre! But you have the Houghton library!

[BrokenLyre]

Yes, I am still hoping to get to the Harvard Library in June and see some original Keats stuff. We'll see if they let me in.