Nicolas Altstaedt and Friends

Inspiration for composers comes from a variety of sources, but in these intensely evocative works the muse is forefront and central. Birtwistle’s 9 Settings of Lorine Niedecker were composed as both a gift for fellow composer Elliott Carter and a tribute to the fragile, elliptical poetry of Niedecker. Birtwistle thought of “this sequence of vocal miniatures … as being like a bunch of flowers”.

Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich was, after the singer Peter Pears, Britten’s most well-served muse. The Sonata in C was the first piece he composed for him, having met him at a concert in 1960. The Sonata’s playful and mercurial energy is in some ways a portrait of the gregarious cellist.

Shostakovich’s Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok were composed for Rostropovich’s wife, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya: she premiered the piece in 1967 with her husband playing the cello part. When it was performed in Aldeburgh in 1968, Britten joined the ensemble on the piano. Blok’s poetry, written in response to the 1917 Revolution, is melancholy, nostalgic and occasionally disturbing; Shostakovich’s setting is often reduced to a single line, bare octaves, or sparse exchanges. The full ensemble only gathers in the final movement: the inspiration here is simply Music.

The programme also includes the UK premiere of Craftsmen and Clowns by British composer Tom Coult, commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society through the generous support of an anonymous donor.

Anna-Lena Elbert soprano
Benjamin Marquise Gilmore violin
Nicolas Altstaedt cello
Ryan Wigglesworth piano