Ghosts Before Breakfast
| Strauss | The Castle by the Sea |
| Hans Richter | Ghosts Before Breakfast (silent film with live music by Jean Hasse) |
| Kagel | Old/New |
| Kagel | MM51 |
| Rushton | The Concoction of a Charlatan |
| Poe | Shadow |
| Goebbels | In the Basement |
| Rushton | On the Edge |
An adventurous and ambitious exploration of the interaction between words, music and visuals. The programme explores supernatural motifs and also the concept of melodrama not only as a stage genre, but also in terms of its influence on opera and early silent film, examining the broader idea of the relationship between sound and image, spoken text and music.
On the Edge is a boldly innovative, cross-genre project bringing together elements of music, theatre and video. The story, set in the Swiss Jungfrau region, takes as its starting point the memoirs of Sir Arnold Lunn, the inventor of the slalom, and his recollection of his wife’s near-fatal accident while climbing the Jungfrau. The scenario also weaves in the terrifying booming sounds that herald an avalanche, a light-hearted philosophical discussion of the purpose of sport and a Swiss folktale. The 35-minute piece alternates music and narration to create a work which, in the composer’s own words, will be 'colourful, strange, multilayered and slightly absurd'.
The Sad Monk
| Liszt | The Sad Monk |
| Shelley | Poem: The Spectral Horseman |
| Liszt | Gretchen (from Faust Symphony) |
| Wagner | Gretchen |
| Wagner | Siegfried Idyll |
| Strauss | The Castle by the Sea |
| Schubert | Farewell to the Earth |
| Rushton | On the Edge |
A programme combining verse and music illustrating how the sensibilities of Romantic poetry were reflected in associated musical compositions. In the genre of melodrama, those sensibilities were heightened by juxtaposing verse and music within the same piece. This programme offers rarely heard melodramas by Liszt, Strauss and Schubert.
Liszt’s The Sad Monk (poem by Lenau) has a Mephistophelean atmosphere deriving from its forward-looking augmented harmonies.
Strauss’s beautiful Castle by the Sea (poem by Uhland) is presented in a new chamber arrangement by David Matthews.
Schubert’s Farewell to the Earth is a poignant song of valediction in the composer’s serene late style.
Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll in new arrangement by James Francis Brown
Despite its setting in the Swiss Jungfrau, site of Romantic inspiration (e.g. Byron, Shelley), Rushton’s work turns the 19th-century melodrama on its head.
Lights and ShadowsEleanor Bron with Counterpoise
The incomparable Eleanor Bron brings her wide-ranging talents to an extraordinarily rich and diverse show which draws on cabaret, poetry and jazz, as well as various classical genres. The programme spotlights the fusion of words and music in contrasting genres and settings, from Britten’s nightclub blues The Spider and the Fly to Copland’s evocative urban landscape Quiet City. Poetry by Keats, Auden, Eliot and Langston Hughes is woven into the texture of the programme and cross-references between the genres (jazz/classical, poetry/music) explored. There is also a rare opportunity to sample the notoriety of George Antheil, the Bad Boy of Music.
| Weill | The Threepenny Opera Suite |
| Schulhoff | Hot Sonata |
| Antheil | Shimmy |
| Persichetti | The Hollow Men |
| Britten/Runswick | Three Blues |
| Dizzy Gillespie/Paparelli | Lights and Shadows |
| Copland | Piano Blues |
| Turnage | Two Elegies Framing a Shout |
| Antheil | Ode on a Grecian Urn |
| Copland | Quiet City |
| Poems by Keats, Brecht, Auden, T. S. Eliot and Langston Hughes. | |
The Spectral Horseman
| Liszt | The Sad Monk |
| Liszt | Gretchen |
| Ysaÿe | Obsession |
| Shelley | Poem: The Spectral Horseman |
| Ysaÿe | Furies |
| Strauss | The Castle by the Sea |
| Schubert | Farewell to the Earth |
| Rushton | On the Edge |
A programme combining verse and music illustrating how the sensibilities of Romantic poetry were reflected in associated musical compositions. In the genre of melodrama, those sensibilities were heightened by juxtaposing verse and music within the same piece. This programme offers rarely heard melodramas by Liszt, Strauss and Schubert.
Liszt’s The Sad Monk (poem by Lenau) has a Mephistophelean atmosphere deriving from its forward-looking augmented harmonies.
Strauss’s beautiful Castle by the Sea (poem by Uhland) is presented in a new chamber arrangement by David Matthews.
Schubert’s Farewell to the Earth is a poignant song of valediction in the composer’s serene late style.
Ysaÿe: selected movements from his popular virtuoso solo sonatas exploiting associations of the supernatural
Despite its setting in the Swiss Jungfrau, site of Romantic inspiration (e.g. Byron, Shelley), Rushton’s work turns the 19th-century melodrama on its head, in a dazzling and witty display of musical and verbal ingenuity.
