Sophie Junker and Deirdre Brenner @ West Cork Chamber Music Festival 2021 – Bantry and Beyond

Sophie Junker and Deirdre Brenner @ West Cork Chamber Music Festival 2021 – Bantry and Beyond

Sunday, 13 June 2021, 8.00pm

Sophie Junker, Deirdre Brenner 
NOTRE AMOUR
ABBAYE ROYAUMONT, PARIS

Book now

Fauré Le papillon et la fleur; La fée aux chansons; Tristesse; Green; Le berceaux; Notre amour Messiaen Trois Mélodies
Poulenc Banalités
Hahn Trois jours de vendange; Le rossignol des lilas; L’Énamourée; L’heure exquise; Le printemps

Inspired by Reynaldo Hahn’s enchanting song, L’heure exquise, this hour-long programme weaves together light, fragrant and poignant songs of the French mélodie repertoire. It opens with a selection by the composer Gabriel Fauré, a master of this genre. The first song in this set, Le papillon et le fleur, was the first song Fauré ever published and is delightfully representative of his style. The charming text of Victor Hugo dances off the page in a whimsical waltz expressing with great clarity the feelings of a fleeting romance.

The cycle Banalités by Francis Poulenc is a setting of five poems by the poet Guillaume Apollinaire. This marriage of minds offers music of great contrast from the flurry of city life in Chanson d’Orkenise to the lazy sensuality of Hôtel. We hear the wind gusting over the moss-hags of Belgium in Fagne de Wallonie and a heartbreaking tribute to the dreamer in Sanglot. While this programme was created to be performed in West Cork, we took delight in rehearsing the remaining song in this cycle Voyage à Paris in Paris!

Olivier Messiaen’s Trois Mélodies were conceived by the composer in 1930 at the age of 22. Although these are early songs, they demonstrate many facets of Messiaen’s later style, expressing ecstatic Christian inspiration and brilliant modal colors.

The hour closes with a bouquet of songs by the fin de siècle composer Reynaldo Hahn. Hahn crafted each song like a painting, exploring emotions with tenderness and ease. In the center of this set is L’Énamourée which floats through an ethereal space in gentleness and grace.

Book now

***

West Cork Chamber Music Festival 2021: Bantry and Beyond (28 May–25 July)
West Cork Chamber Music Festival goes virtual. Although the circumstances for enjoying chamber music are different this year, the quality of the artists and the diversity and excellence of the programming are as high as ever.

The West Cork Chamber Music Festival is delighted to introduce its virtual incarnation, Bantry and Beyond. As the Festival musicians could not come to Bantry, the Festival has gone to the musicians. Festival-goers will become virtual travellers to destinations around Europe and USA. They will visit famous concert halls in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Chicago; historic Great Houses of Ireland and the Netherlands; a centuries old abbey with a fabulous library; Palaces in Prague and Vienna; old churches in London, Bantry and Amsterdam; a vaulted tunnel under a vanished convent in Cologne; studios in Amsterdam and Berlin; and Music Centres in Hungary and Italy.

The thirty Festival concerts will commence with four themed weekends starting in Vienna on 28 May before moving to daily concerts 25 June – 4 July followed by a coda of five concerts later in July. The concerts will be streamed by the platform OurConcerts.live. A PDF of the programme is available below.

Box office will open on 20th May 1pm and tickets can be bought here.

Audiences can buy a Festival Pass for all concerts, packages of 6 concerts, or single concerts.

All concerts will be available On Demand for 48 hours after broadcast. Visit the Box office link above to learn more.

Book here

WebsiteAdd a Listing

Published by Journal of Music on 7 June 2021

comments powered by Disqus

Please note that some listings are added by third parties. The Journal of Music does not take responsibility for the content or accuracy of listings published by third parties on this site. The Journal of Music reserves the right to edit or delete listings. Click here to add a listing, login or register.