Southwell Festival Chamber Soloists
Marcus Farnsworth baritone
Libby Burgess piano
Simon Cole narrator
Claude Debussy Berceuse héroique
George Butterworth Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad
Stuart MacRae Parable
Josef Suk Mediation on the old Czech Hymn “St Wenceslas”
Igor Stravinsky The Soldier’s Tale
“Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.”
The pity, brutality and senselessness of war is summed up in Wilfred Owen’s reworking of the bible story of Abraham and Isaac and provides the theme for the first half of this concert. To mark another centenary the second half comprises a narrated performance of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale: this prototype of 20th-century music-theatre was first performed in 1918. Accompanied by a septet of instruments, it is based on Russian folk tale The Runaway Soldier and the Devil – the parable of a soldier who sells his fiddle to the devil in return for unlimited financial gain.
