Three concert programmes emerge from the album 'The Past & I: 100 Years of Thomas Hardy'. Find out about this project at this page.
1) Full-length concert with interval: string quartet, guitar and mezzo-soprano
2) One hour recital: guitar and mezzo-soprano
3) One hour recital: string quartet and tenor or mezzo-soprano
Details of each are below.
1) Full-length concert with interval: string quartet, guitar and mezzo-soprano
2) One hour recital: guitar and mezzo-soprano
3) One hour recital: string quartet and tenor or mezzo-soprano
Details of each are below.
The Past & I: One Hundred Years of Thomas Hardy
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Instrumentation: String quartet, guitar and mezzo-soprano
Full concert with interval Previously performed by Ligeti Quartet, James Girling and Lotte Betts-Dean in Bristol, June 2024 (album launch). This concert presents all of the music on the album 'The Past & I: 100 Years of Thomas Hardy' which reached number 5 in the Specialist Classical Music Chart, received excellent reviews in national press and was Presto Music's 'Recording of the Week'. Each half ends with sister song cycles 'Elegies for Emma' and 'Elegies for Tom' with favourites of English song from across the 20th Century, by Finzi, Britten and Gurney, in between. It also highlights lesser known, but wonderful additions to the canon of English Art Song by Imogen Holst, Robin Milford, Ethel (Henry Handel) Richardson and Muriel Herbert. It also includes a wonderfully haunting new song by Kerry Andrew. |
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Wessex Songs
Instrumentation: Guitar and mezzo-soprano
Recital (c. 60')
Previously performed by James Girling and Lotte Betts-Dean in Wells, Sherborne, Cattistock and Stinsford in July/August 2024 (album launch tour).
This concert of guitar-accompanied song celebrates the long lineage of the form in English music. Famous Hardy songs from across the 20th Century arranged for guitar appear alongside early renaissance lute song (Dowland and Purcell) and 60s folk artist Nick Drake. Kerry Andrew's haunting new song and the dramatic song cycle Elegies for Emma provide atmospheric focus on Thomas Hardy's relationships with women and obsession with the passing of time.
Recital (c. 60')
Previously performed by James Girling and Lotte Betts-Dean in Wells, Sherborne, Cattistock and Stinsford in July/August 2024 (album launch tour).
This concert of guitar-accompanied song celebrates the long lineage of the form in English music. Famous Hardy songs from across the 20th Century arranged for guitar appear alongside early renaissance lute song (Dowland and Purcell) and 60s folk artist Nick Drake. Kerry Andrew's haunting new song and the dramatic song cycle Elegies for Emma provide atmospheric focus on Thomas Hardy's relationships with women and obsession with the passing of time.
Elegies and Exhortations
Instrumentation: String quartet and tenor or mezzo-soprano
Recital (c. 60')
This programme has yet to be performed
This concert sheds new light on Finzi's canonic Hardy song cycle A Young Man's Exhortation in a brand new arrangement for string quartet and tenor or mezzo-soprano. Hearing these songs with quartet accompaniment magnifies the drama and "is akin to seeing colourised versions of old black-and-white photographs"*.
Arthur Keegan's String Quartet No. 1 'Elegies for Tom' closes the programme in a meditative air after the dramatic arc of Finzi's cycle. The music focusses in on Hardy's obsession with the passing of time (referring throughout to his poem 'Afterwards') and also brings the relationship between Larkin and Hardy's poetry to light with sung interludes of Larkin's 'The Mower' between the instrumental movements.
*Katherine Cooper, Presto
Recital (c. 60')
This programme has yet to be performed
This concert sheds new light on Finzi's canonic Hardy song cycle A Young Man's Exhortation in a brand new arrangement for string quartet and tenor or mezzo-soprano. Hearing these songs with quartet accompaniment magnifies the drama and "is akin to seeing colourised versions of old black-and-white photographs"*.
Arthur Keegan's String Quartet No. 1 'Elegies for Tom' closes the programme in a meditative air after the dramatic arc of Finzi's cycle. The music focusses in on Hardy's obsession with the passing of time (referring throughout to his poem 'Afterwards') and also brings the relationship between Larkin and Hardy's poetry to light with sung interludes of Larkin's 'The Mower' between the instrumental movements.
*Katherine Cooper, Presto