Today, the 大象传媒 Philharmonic has invited its Composer in Association, Tom Coult, to curate a concert built around his own music and arrangements on the theme of mirrors. He鈥檚 invited soprano Anna Dennis with whom he鈥檚 collaborated on a number of projects in the past and conductor Andrew Gourlay to join him.
In After Lassus, a world premiere, Tom has selected duets from the sixteenth century composer Orlando Lassus鈥檚 Novae Aliquot and turned them 鈥渁round in the hand like plasticine - reshaping, stretching and compressing them, combining them, putting them in unfamiliar surroundings鈥�. He deploys similar ingenuity in his song cycle Beautiful Caged Thing. Inspired by Oscar Wilde鈥檚 鈥榣ightness, playfulness and sheer fleet-footed 茅lan,鈥� Coult set about devising his own 鈥榃ilde poetry鈥� to set, based on The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Tom also includes Two Portraits, composed by Benjamin Britten when he was 16, and which lay unperformed for over sixty years. These 鈥榮ketches鈥� as Britten himself called them, are musical characterisations, the first of Britten's school friend, David Layton and the second, a self-portrait. And interspersed through the programme are Tom鈥檚 arrangements of R Schumann鈥檚 canons written for the short-lived pedal piano, music turned backwards and reflected upside down, re-illuminated in orchestral colours.
Programme
Tom Coult: Beautiful Caged Thing
R Schumann arr Tom Coult: Studies in Canonic Form
Britten: Two Portraits
Tom Coult: After Lassus (World Premiere)
