Mark Padmore, Till Fellner

Britten - Sechs Hölderlin-Fragmente
Harrison Birtwistle - Songs from the Same Earth (world premiere*)
Schumann - Dichterliebe

Pairing Britten’s only German song collection with Schumann acknowledges his debt to one of the grand masters of Romantic lieder. But while Schumann’s magnifi cent cycle creates a large canvas on which to draw his protagonist’s desires and despair, Britten’s is a miracle of concision where every phrase is potent, every song a fl eeting impression befi tting the ‘fragments’ of the title. Birtwistle’s major new cycle reunites composer, writer David Harsent and lead role from his 2009 Aldeburgh-commissioned opera, The Corridor.