2 x 45 min programme (includes Roderick Williams Silence and Music 25 mins stand alone piece) – Collaborative programme with cellist Matthew Sharp
Songs of myth, memory, and the passage of time performed by the vocal trio, Voice, and ‘cellist Matthew Sharp. At the heart of this collaborative programme is a suite of madrigals composed for the quartet by Roderick Williams, which set the poetry of Ursula Vaughan Williams. Taking its name from Ursula Vaughan Williams’ autobiography, Paradise Remembered: Ursula Vaughan Williams – An Autobiography (2002: Albion Music Ltd), this programme features Roderick Williams’ composition for the quartet, Silence and Music.
The link between Ursula Vaughan Williams (1911 – 2007) and EFDSS is explored with folksongs collected and arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 – 1958), including arrangements of Lovely Joan – both playful and ironic – and the heart-wrenching She’s Like the Swallow, documented as a favourite of both UVW and her close friend and collector Maud Karpeles. Turning to another special relationship, that of RVW’s lifelong friend, Gustav Holst (1874 – 1934), Voice performs four songs from Eight Canons.
Matthew Sharp performs Rough Magic (James Francis Brown arr. Sharp), which weaves the sonic charms of the cello with Prospero’s spellbound verse, as well as the thrilling, virtuosic Lamentatio (Giovanni Sollima, b.1962), for cello and baritone.
The unstoppable passage of time is brought firmly into view in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 60, Like As the Waves, in a contemporary setting by Portuguese composer Filipe Sousa (2014) for Voice and ‘cello.