I Fagiolini

As the focus on climate change grows, I Fagiolini sing of nature and the passing of the year in a programme inspired by Pieter Breughel the Younger’s The Four Seasons.

From Monteverdi’s springtime of love to Howells’ masterpiece The Summer is Coming, we greet old age in Brahms’ autumn thoughts and Poulenc’s metaphorical winter of World War II. With a foot-tapping ode to Creation by Schütz as well as 1970s French jazz (Chanson d’Automne), I Fagiolini weaves a rich aural tapestry spanning six centuries.

Framing each of the seasons is an a cappella masterwork. De Wert’s ‘seasick motet’ is an unsettling depiction of Christ calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee, whilst Leighton’s setting of Gerald Manley Hopkins, The world is charged, is a choral classic. Renaissance naughty boy Clément Janequin’s two theatrical soundscapes Song of the birds and The Hunt – complete the quartet and are semi-staged by I Fagiolini in a perfect counterpoint to Breughel’s images.

The year comes full circle with Ed Hughes’ vivid account of Inuit women lifting their new-born babies to catch the sun’s first rays after the long winter.

Breughel and I Fagiolini invite you to pull up an armchair (or dog-drawn sleigh), while they gather in the musical harvest.