18. Crespo Series
Works by Vaughan Williams, Stuart MacRae, Sally Beamish, Michael Berkeley, Hindemith, Brett Dean, Nicola LeFanu and others are the basis of a unique father-daughter recital for viola and mezzo.
This Festival is privileged to be a port of call for Australian composer and violist, Brett Dean, and his mezzo-soprano daughter. Lotte Betts-Dean rescued us last year by jumping in on 2 days’ notice with a stunning performance of
The Magdalene Songs. Father and daughter have a programme of works for viola and voice including specially composed works, including at least one Irish premiere. The concert is divided into three parts; the first part opens with a wordless vocalise with an otherworldly feel from a very late work by Vaughan Williams. Next is
The Lif of this World by the Scottish composer, Stuart MacRea; sung in Middle English from the 14th century, the song gives an unflinching account of the short journey from birth to death, the gloomier the text, the more beautiful the music. A short haiku-like text set by Nicola LeFanu precedes a Sally Beamish setting of a two stanza poem by Emily Dickinson extravagantly describing a bee. The central part of the concert alternates solo voice and solo viola, the miniature vocal works feature composers Erin Gee, Giacinto Scelsi and Morton Feldman woven amongst the three movements of Brett Dean's Sketches for Siegbert composed in memory of a viola colleague from the Berlin Phil. Short romantic vocal works by Hindemith and Michael Berkeley follow before Dean's setting of the iconoclastic Australian poet, Les Murray, concludes the recital.
