Principal Sound Weekend Festival (16 - 18 February 2018)
Fri 16 February 7.30pm
Three Voices
The weekend opens with a showcase of performers from across the festival, and features works for performers and electronics. Schoenberg’s aphoristic piano pieces Op. 19 are framed by two works evoking the atmosphere of Nono’s native Venice, whilst Feldman’s Three Voices – which Juliet Fraser recently recorded to critical acclaim – sees the soloist accompanied by two pre-recorded versions of herself to create the haunting, mesmeric textures.
Sat 17 February 4.00pm
Receiving the Approaching Memory
The music of Schubert occupied a very special place in the musical imagination of Morton Feldman. Here Mark Knoop pairs Feldman’s last work for solo piano with a late Schubert impromptu. He is then joined by Aisha Orazbayeva to perform music by Bryn Harrison, whose subtly shifting textures extend Feldman’s language into the 21st century.
Sat 17 February 7.00pm
Fragmente Stille
Making a rare London appearance, the Montreal-based Bozzini Quartet perform Nono’s masterful response to the poetry of Hölderlin alongside a quartet by Claudia Molitor inspired by lines from Rilke. The programme is completed by a set of enigmatic canons by Nono’s compatriot and near-contemporary Aldo Clementi, and the clear, airy harmonies of John Lely’s Doubles.
Sun 18 February 4.00pm
Why Patterns?
After their astounding performance of Feldman’s For Philip Guston in 2016, Jenni Hogan, George Barton and Siwan Rhys return to Principal Sound to perform his mesmerising Why Patterns? Nono’s last completed work, the fragmentary violin duet 'Hay que caminar’ soñando, is performed by members of the Bozzini Quartet, whilst an effervescent trio by Earle Brown (commissioned by Nono for the Darmstadt Festival) is balanced by crystalline keyboard works from Webern and Jürg Frey.
Sun 18 February 7.00pm
Sarà Dolce Tacere
A new choral work by Linda Catlin Smith, setting fragments from Virginia Woolf’s The Years, crowns the final programme from Explore Ensemble and EXAUDI which sets luscious Machaut chansons alongside John Cage and Rebecca Saunders. Elsewhere, the fractured soundworld of late Nono finds resonances in a pair of dusky chamber works by John Croft, Wolfgang Rihm’s imposing Quo me rapis, and fragile miniatures by Feldman and György Kurtág.