Les Illuminations – Britten Music For Voice And Orchestra

Les Illuminations – Britten Music For Voice And Orchestra: performed by Charlotte Kennedy (Soprano), Charlotte Clapperton (Soprano), Avery Lafrentz (Mezzo-soprano), Orchestra of Scottish Opera, Douglas Boyd (Conductor) playing Pärt; Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten; Britten; Les Illuminations; Phaedra; Our Hunting Fathers at St Mary's Kirk, Haddington on Fri 11 Sept 7.30pm as part of the Lammermuir Festival. Britten's lifelong fascination with the human voice yielded several outstanding concert works for solo voice. Scottish Opera presents three of them performed by a trio of talented young singers to honour the 50th anniversary of the composer's death. Two early works frame the concentrated drama of Phaedra, Britten's last major vocal piece. Least known is the startlingly daring symphonic cycle Our Hunting Fathers (1936), in which WH Auden's fiercely emotional poems about hunting condemn the horror of war and appeal for peace.