So many songs

‘I crafted you amid joy and amid sorrows, out of so much that happened, out of so many things.’ For this short song cycle Nico Muhly took two poems by C.F. Kavafis and an unsettling, longer narrative piece by Joyce Carol Oates, the three poems flowing into each other without a break, performed for us by Lotte Betts-Dean with Sonoro Quartet.

Michel van der Aa's 'For the Time Being' is a setting of two more songs by Joyce Carol Oates with the unusual accompaniment of violin, bass and piano introduced by a violin/bass duo. The first song sings of an absent lover - 'I hold you closer, miles away, inventing love.' The second, 'How are we today' is full of fury.

After these two sets from the 21st century, we return to the comfort of the 18th Century and Handel’s ‘German Arias’, one of music’s best-kept secrets. You would think such unrestrainedly joyous music would be on everyone’s lips. These glorious verses are a pantheistic celebration of God-in-Nature and Handel responds with music of hedonistic enchantment from the rapt, wondering 'Süße Stille' to the laughing ebullience of 'Das zitternde Glänzen'. Ana Vieira Leite sings again for us and Daniel Pinteno plays movements from Handel’s violin sonatas in the interludes.

Tickets: €38/26/12