Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. (Available now to download.)
2011 is the 150th Anniversary of the American Civil.
War Wild Winter I was commissioned to commemorate the siege of Lichfield, 1643 British Civil War.
Produced in association with BBC Radio 3.
Rich, powerful musical language and a strong sense of drama have made Thea Musgrave one of the most respected and exciting of living composers. Born in Edinburgh in 1928, she studied at the University of Edinburgh then in Paris, where she spent four years as a pupil of Nadia Boulanger, before establishing herself in London with her orchestral, choral, operatic and chamber works. She has lived in the US since 1970. Musgrave’s ‘opera for radio’ sets a dreamlike tale of the American Civil War based on An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, a short story written in the late 19th century by Ambrose Bierce. Thea Musgrave says .... These three works, though all very different and written decades apart, nevertheless share a common subject: conflict. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1981), a heart-breaking story from the American Civil war; Wild Winter I (1993), a setting of poems from many different countries and in several different languages about the inevitable losses and cruelties of war; and Green (2007), an abstract conflict of a life-giving force against its suffocating nemesis.
Thea Musgrave: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
It happened during the civil war … (Narrator, Soldier, Farquhar)
Company halt! (Sergeant, Captain, Farquhar)
Sergeant, is everything ready? (Captain, Sergeant, Farquhar)
Sergeant! Are you ready? (Captain, Sergeant, Farquhar)
Water is in my ears … (Farquhar, Captain)
I can feel the sand, like diamonds (Farquhar)
No, no! I must get away (Farquhar, Captain, Narrator)
Thea Musgrave: Green
Green
Thea Musgrave: Wild Winter I
Prologue: War broke: and now the Winter of the world
Lament I: He cerrado mi balcon
Lament II: Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind
Lament III: Guerre, o guerre occupee au choc des escadrons
Interlude: Geante, a quoi sers-tu?
Lament IV: Le donne lagrimose, e'l vulgo inerme
Lament V: Den wilden Orgeln des Wintersturms
Coda: … (Wild) winter closes in …
31st March 2011
***
“Musgrave claims it was conceived as a fully fledged opera and not as "a play with incidental music". But that isn't how it comes across in this recording, taken from the original BBC tapes...Musgrave's accomplished music is much better served by the other two works here, which link to the opera through their connections with conflict in its widest sense.”
June 2011
****
“As the victim, Jake Gardner is heroic and ardent, if not ideally lyrical; the London Sinfonietta, under Musgrave herself, plays with razor-sharp precision. The original 1981 studio broadcast (produced by Veronica Slater, who shoudl ahve been credited in the booklet) experty balances singing, speech, orchestra and sound effects, creating a genuine musical drama for the ear.”
July 2011
“the ear for instrumental colour [in Owl Creek Bridge] really is remarkable, the more so since it is generally discreet...Musgrave sets [the texts in Wild Winter I] in what one might call an animated ritual, as if the human voies are caught up in something much bigger than them, something they can't control...the atmospheric music on this disc deserves your attention.”
It happened during the civil war … (Narrator, Soldier, Farquhar)
