Performer: Lotte Betts-Dean, James Girling, Ligeti Quartet
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Delphian
Catalogue: DCD34307
Release: 2024
Size: 0.99 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Keegan: Elegies for Emma
01. I. Days to Recollect (Pt. 1)
02. II. The Walk
03. III. Rain on a Grave
04. Interlude: I Look into my Glass
05. IV. The Voice
06. V. She to Him
07. VI. Days to Recollect (Pt. 2)
Holman: Three Songs for Voice and Harp
08. No. 1, Midnight on the Great Western
09. Herbert: Faintheart in a Railway Train
Keegan: Winter Words, Op. 52
10. At the Railway Station, Upway
11. Holst: Weathers
12. Gurney: In the Black Winter Morning
Milford: Four Hardy Songs
13. No. 3, If It’s Ever Spring Again
Finzi: Before and After Summer, Op. 16
14. No. 7, The Too Short Time
15. Andrew: The Echo Elf Answers
Finzi: A Young Man’s Exhortation, Op. 14
16. No. 6, Shortening Days
Keegan: String Quartet No. 1 “Elegies for Tom”
17. I. Delicate-filmed, as New-spun Silk
18. Interlude No. 1
19. II. An Eyelid’s Soundless Blink
20. Interlude No. 2
21. III. Nocturnal Blackness, Mothy and Warm
22. Interlude No. 3
23. IV. Full-starred Heavens that Winter Sees
24. Interlude No. 4
25. V. A New Bell’s Boom
Conceived during a residency at The Red House, Benjamin Britten’s former home, in 2019, this collection of new compositions and arrangements by Arthur Keegan – developed in close collaboration with the performers – shows the profound influence of Thomas Hardy’s poetry on composers throughout the twentieth century and into our own era. Hardy’s characteristic themes are present throughout: the relentless passing of time; nature and the changing seasons; the effects on both of the modern world, with its machines and timetables. Keegan’s Elegies for Emma, for voice and guitar, seeks to restore the voice of Hardy’s first wife Emma alongside the regret-filled poems Hardy wrote after her death, while String Quartet No 1 ‘Elegies for Tom’ weaves instrumental meditations on Hardy’s poem ‘Afterwards’ together with interludes setting a later poem by Philip Larkin. Recently named Young Artist of the Year at the prestigious RPS Music Awards, mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean is joined by guitarist James Girling and the Ligeti Quartet in performances that linger long in the memory.