This piece is an ongoing collaboration with Lotte Betts-Dean (mezzo-soprano). The cycle was started in May 2019 with the piece The Walk, the next instalment, Rain on a Grave, was written whilst on a Wild Plum Arts and Britten|Pears Arts residency 'Made at the Red House'. It was premiered in Britten and Pear's library at the Red House in December 2019.
A third song, The Voice, was premiered in May 2022 and the set will be completed (three further songs and an interlude) by July 2023.
This is a sister piece to my first string quartet: Afterwards - Elegies for Tom and part of a larger Hardy project that will be released as an album on the Delphian label in spring 2024. This release will be supported by a tour of performances over the summer of 2024.
Portfolio recordings from development performances and rehearsals are available below:
A third song, The Voice, was premiered in May 2022 and the set will be completed (three further songs and an interlude) by July 2023.
This is a sister piece to my first string quartet: Afterwards - Elegies for Tom and part of a larger Hardy project that will be released as an album on the Delphian label in spring 2024. This release will be supported by a tour of performances over the summer of 2024.
Portfolio recordings from development performances and rehearsals are available below:
|
Rehearsal footage of The Voice:
|
First performances of Rain on a Grave and The Walk:
|
Programme Note:
This cycle sets poems from Thomas Hardy’s collection Poems of 1912-13. This set was written after the death of his wife Emma and are elegies that do not shy away from the couple’s complicated relationship. Tim Armstrong describes the collection as “One of the greatest and most personal elegiac sequences written in English, offering a substantial revision of the elegiac tradition for the twentieth century, as well as a uniquely honest image of the poet struggling with his own grief and remorse.” *
I was drawn to the collection for their linguistic beauty and frankness. My response focuses on the complex emotional landscapes of the poems which often express multiple emotions simultaneously.
The starting point for writing this piece at all comes from admiration of Finzi’s many settings of Hardy poetry. His settings serve the text beautifully, to the point that the poetry defines the musical shape. The idea for this cycle and the music herein was developed with Lotte Betts-Dean, to whom I am grateful.
AKB
* Tim Armstrong, Thomas Hardy: Poems of 1912-13 in ‘A Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry’ ed. Neil Roberts (Blackwell, Oxford, 2001)
This cycle sets poems from Thomas Hardy’s collection Poems of 1912-13. This set was written after the death of his wife Emma and are elegies that do not shy away from the couple’s complicated relationship. Tim Armstrong describes the collection as “One of the greatest and most personal elegiac sequences written in English, offering a substantial revision of the elegiac tradition for the twentieth century, as well as a uniquely honest image of the poet struggling with his own grief and remorse.” *
I was drawn to the collection for their linguistic beauty and frankness. My response focuses on the complex emotional landscapes of the poems which often express multiple emotions simultaneously.
The starting point for writing this piece at all comes from admiration of Finzi’s many settings of Hardy poetry. His settings serve the text beautifully, to the point that the poetry defines the musical shape. The idea for this cycle and the music herein was developed with Lotte Betts-Dean, to whom I am grateful.
AKB
* Tim Armstrong, Thomas Hardy: Poems of 1912-13 in ‘A Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry’ ed. Neil Roberts (Blackwell, Oxford, 2001)