William Byrd Singers: Roses, Love and Fire

Our Summer concert this season sees us go out in a blaze of glory!  Or, if not glory, will roses be an acceptable substitute?  Morten Lauridsen's Chansons des Roses  sprang from his response to the French verse of one of his favourite poets, Rainer Maria Rilke, and drew from him an intimate, meditative response.  Fitting for an exploration of love, which is the subject of Ravel's Trois Chansons, and more wickedly, of Fauré's Madrigal, his tongue-in-cheek wedding gift to student André Messager.  Setting the men against the women, each complains bitterly about the other until they are united at the end as Fauré weaves their previously separate lines together.

He used a similar technique in an early choral work, Les Djinns, Op.12.  And here the challenge is to set the mirror structure of Hugo's poem satisfactorily to music, a challenge Fauré rises to magnificently

We partner Lauridsen's Fire Songs on Italian Renaissance Madrigals with some examples of actual Italian madrigals, from Gastoldi, Gesualdo, and Monteverdi. And interspersed with these, members of the choir will attempt to break your heart with some solo songs along the same lines.  It promises to be a truly memorable evening!

19:30-22:00 25 May 24