Lawrence Power viola / artistic leader

Ian Bostridge tenor

 

Programme 

 

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Pentatonic Étude for Solo Viola

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John Dowland 

If my complaints could passions move 

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Benjamin Britten

Lachrymae 

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Arcangelo Corelli

Excerpts from Concerto Grosso nr. 6

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Michael Tippett

Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli

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Benjamin Britten

Nocturne, Op. 60

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Lawrence Power is one of today's foremost violists, and for this concert, he has programmed works that explore the viola's sound universe.

It is as if gloomy undercurrents are passing through each work in this programme while the viola's sonorous timbre is the common thread that weaves through the darkness and the spirit of poetry.

And what could be better than to close the concert with Britten's Nocturne. As its name suggests, it is an evocative cycle of night poems for tenor, obligato and strings. Regular performance partners Lawrence Power and tenor Ian Bostridge, each brilliant soloist in their own right, take on this famed song cycle that is one of the greatest examples of musical understanding of poetry.  

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