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Songs from the Same Earth

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17 June | University Church | 7.30pm

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Mark Padmore | Andrew West | Echéa Quartet | Hugo Herman-Wilson | Sebastian Black

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In memory of Sir Harrison Birtwistle (1934-2022)

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Robert Schumann

from 5 Lieder Op. 40

  1. Märzveilchen

  2. Muttertraum

  3. Der Soldat

  4. Der Spielmann

 

Henry Purcell

Fantasia 9 a 4

 

Lili Boulanger

from Clairières dans le ciel

  1. Nous nous aimerons tant

  2. Vous m'avez regardé avec toute votre âme

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Henry Purcell 

Fantasia 6 a 4

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Sir Harrison Birtwistle 

Fantasia 4

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Modest Mussorgsky

from Songs and Dances of Death 

  3. Trepak

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Joseph Haydn

String Quartet Op. 20 No. 5 

  IV. Finale. Fuga a due soggetti

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Sir Harrison Birtwistle

from Songs from the Same Earth

1. Silence of slow water, silence of the rose

8. A storm coming in off the skyline and you in the full of it

9. You are here and nowhere else despite your dreaming

10. When the entire flock lifted as one

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Mark Padmore will also sing songs  by Henry Purcell, Samuel Barber, Rebecca Clarke, Michael Tippett, Tansy Davies and Sally Beamish 

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A veritable smorgasbord to start a SmorgasChord! This concert, packed with music traversing a sweep from the seventeenth century to the present day, sees Mark Padmore and Andrew West open the festival with Sir Harrison Birtwistle's extraordinary song cycle, Songs from the Same Earth. The cycle was written for Mark Padmore to sing, and was given its first performance by Mark and Andrew West at the Aldeburgh Festival in 2013. According to the Guardian, it 'served a powerful reminder as to how art song, at its best, can provide both poet and composer with their highest calling'. 

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Before Songs from the Same Earth, we have curated a selection of short, brilliant pieces that will musically preface Birtwistle's idiosyncratic language. Like a kind of 'Birtwistle playlist', they will be played without pause, a quality of each piece rubbing off on its neighbour.

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Where: University Church | Oxford

When: 17 June | 7.30pm

Duration: 1 hour 45 minutes, including interval

Tickets: £20 | £15 | £10 | Students £5 | Festival Pass £50

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