Performers
- Anna Dennissoprano
- Andrew Gourlayconductor
Concert Information
Today, the ±«Óătv Philharmonic has invited its Composer in Association, Tom Coult, to curate a concert built around his own music and arrangements on the theme of mirrors. Heâs invited soprano Anna Dennis with whom heâs collaborated on a number of projects in the past and conductor Andrew Gourlay to join him.
In After Lassus, a world premiere, Tom has selected duets from the sixteenth century composer Orlando Lassusâs Novae Aliquot and turned them âaround in the hand like plasticine - reshaping, stretching and compressing them, combining them, putting them in unfamiliar surroundingsâ. He deploys similar ingenuity in his song cycle Beautiful Caged Thing. Inspired by Oscar Wildeâs âlightness, playfulness and sheer fleet-footed Ă©lan,â Coult set about devising his own âWilde poetryâ to set, based on The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Tom also includes Two Portraits, composed by Benjamin Britten when he was 16, and which lay unperformed for over sixty years. These âsketchesâ as Britten himself called them, are musical characterisations, the first of Britten's school friend, David Layton and the second, a self-portrait. And interspersed through the programme are Tomâs arrangements of R Schumannâs canons written for the short-lived pedal piano, music turned backwards and reflected upside down, re-illuminated in orchestral colours.
Programme
Tom Coult: Beautiful Caged Thing
R Schumann arr Tom Coult: Studies in Canonic Form
Britten: Two Portraits
Tom Coult: After Lassus (World Premiere)