A new work for solo cello by Tom Coult, commissioned by the RPS, will receive it's first UK performance as part of Aldeburgh Festival, performed by Nicolas Altstaedt.

Tom's new piece for solo cello, Craftsmen and Clowns, opens aninspired recital of chamber and vocal works performed by an outstanding ensemble: Birtwistle, Britten and Shostakovich.
 

Tom says:

"There is an analysis about the makeup of sitcoms (though it can be applied to dramas as well), that four central characters generally fit into the archetypes of ‘matriarch’, ‘patriarch’, ‘craftsman’, and ‘clown’. Mostly I just love the imagery and sound of the phrase ‘craftsmen and clowns’, and for me that’s reason enough to make it a title. If I were to apply these archetypes to the piece though: the cellist in this piece is generally a craftsman or craftswoman – constructing, weaving, shaping. Their music, however, is occasionally interrupted by, or co-existent with, something more primal, or mischievous."

We are grateful to an anonymous donor for their generous support in making this commission possible.

Programme: 

Anna-Lena Elbert soprano
Benjamin Marquise Gilmore violin   
Nicolas Altstaedt cello
Ryan Wigglesworth piano

Tom CoultCraftsmen and Clowns (UK premiere) (14’)
Birtwistle 9 Settings of Lorine Niedecker (12’)
Britten Cello Sonata, Op.65 (20’)
Shostakovich Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok, Op.127 (25’)

Inspiration for composers comes from a variety of sources, but in these intensely evocative works the muse is forefront and central. Birtwistle’s 9 Settings of Lorine Niedecker were composed as both a gift for fellow composer Elliott Carter and a tribute to the fragile, elliptical poetry of Niedecker. Birtwistle thought of “this sequence of vocal miniatures … as being like a bunch of flowers”. Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich was, after the singer Peter Pears, Britten’s most well-served muse. The Sonata in C was the first piece he composed for him, having met him at a concert in 1960. The Sonata’s playful and mercurial energy is in some ways a portrait of the gregarious cellist. Shostakovich’s Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok were composed for Rostropovich’s wife, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya: she premiered the piece in 1967 with her husband playing the cello part. When it was performed in Aldeburgh in 1968, Britten joined the ensemble on the piano. Blok’s poetry, written in response to the 1917 Revolution, is melancholy, nostalgic and occasionally disturbing; Shostakovich’s setting is often reduced to a single line, bare octaves, or sparse exchanges. The full ensemble only gathers in the final movement: the inspiration here is simply Music.

Tickets: £35, £27; under 25s half price