Live from London - Spring

I Fagiolini - Re-Wilding The Waste Land

Inspired by T.S. Eliot’s ground-breaking poem ‘The Waste Land’, written 100 years ago in the wake of the catastrophic upheavals of the First World War and the ‘Spanish Flu’, ‘Re-Wilding The Waste Land’ explores cycles of renewal in both creation and creativity. Ensnared in our own pandemic and mindful of David Attenborough’s ‘witness statement’ plea to 'Re-Wild', desolation flowers into an outpouring of music and poetry.

The shadowy world of Spanish master Victoria’s Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Week (at their rarely heard but intended lower pitch) are accompanied by William Byrd’s motet ‘Deus, venerunt gentes’, chillingly describing a land wasted through intolerance. Out of this are born world premiere commissions by Joanna Marsh, Ben Rowarth, and Shruthi Rajasekar whose ‘Rebirth of a River’ reflects Indian motifs in ‘The Waste Land’.

Manley Hopkins' sonnet ‘God’s Grandeur’, sung in Kenneth Leighton's rapturous setting, claimed that “…for all this, nature is never spent”. So in a final challenge to reflect and change, Joanna Marsh sets John F. Deane's 'The world is charged', itself a reworking of ‘God’s Grandeur’: new music and poetry to encourage contemplation and hope.

Programme:
Victoria – 'Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday'
William Byrd/Ben Rowarth – 'Deus, venerunt gentes'
Vaughan-Williams – 'Silence and Music'
Leighton – 'God’s Grandeur'
Joanna Marsh – 'Metachoral in blue / The World is Charged'
Shruthi Rajasekar – 'Rebirth of a River'