Quincunx, for baritone, soprano & orchestra (after Sir Thomas Browne), Op. 44
And Suddenly it's Evening, for tenor & chamber ensemble, Op. 66
Music for Albion Moonlight, for soprano, flute, clarinet, melodica, piano, violin & cello
The lovely, evocative titles of the British song cycles Elisabeth Lutyens' And Suddenly it's Evening and David Bedford's Music for Albion Moonlight create expectations of nocturnal serenity that are contradicted by the pieces themselves, both the texts and the music. Lutyens' texts, by Salvatore Quasimodo, and Bedford's, by Kenneth Patchen, are disturbing, anguished, gruesome, or bitterly resigned, and in each case, the composer matches them with music that's entirely appropriate, and which is therefore far from the ...
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The lovely, evocative titles of the British song cycles Elisabeth Lutyens' And Suddenly it's Evening and David Bedford's Music for Albion Moonlight create expectations of nocturnal serenity that are contradicted by the pieces themselves, both the texts and the music. Lutyens' texts, by Salvatore Quasimodo, and Bedford's, by Kenneth Patchen, are disturbing, anguished, gruesome, or bitterly resigned, and in each case, the composer matches them with music that's entirely appropriate, and which is therefore far from the pastoral calm the titles suggest. Both pieces were written in the mid-'60s and are in many ways characteristic of the academic serialism that dominated "serious" music of that era, exquisitely colorful handling of orchestration and textures, spiky harmonies, disjunct melodies, and text setting that treats the singer instrumentally rather than vocally. Lutyens asks the singer primarily to sing and speak, but Bedford's also calls for extended vocal techniques, such as screaming into the open...
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