Sunday 24 June 2018 4.30pm 12 Henrietta Street, Dublin 1
Tickets €18 Early booking recommended
www.thedrawingroom.ie

Harpsichordist Malcolm Proud and @TheDrawingRoom have curated a programme of music by contemporaries of Jonathan Swift. First published in 1726 Swift’s classic satirical novel Gulliver’s Travels was an international success and was soon translated into German. It became so popular in Germany that in 1728 Georg Philipp Telemann composed a suite of five movements, each movement based on a different episode in the book.

Actor Sharon McArdle will read extracts from Gulliver’s Travels and baroque violinists Claire Duff and Marja Gaynor will perform Telemann’s music.

A trio sonata by Handel and Matthew Dubourg’s embellished version of a violin sonata by Corelli will also be performed between other excerpts from Swift’s writings.

Reputedly not a fan of music, Jonathan Swift once announced “I would not give a farthing for all the music in the universe”. However, before Handel left Dublin in 1742, following the successful premiere of his ‘Messiah’, Swift is said to have remarked “O pray let me see a German genius before I die!”. Matthew Dubourg “Chief Composer and Master of the Music attending His Majesty’s State in Ireland” led the orchestra at the first performance of Handel’s ‘Messiah’.