| March 20th 2010 | Celebrity Concert £15 tickets only |
| Mark Padmore | ~ tenor |
| Simon Lepper | ~ piano |
| | |
Programme | |
| Dichterliebe (talk) | Schumann |
| Liederkreis Op24 (talk) | Schumann |
| Liederkreis Op24 | Schumann |
Interval | |
| Dichterliebe | Schumann |
Liederkreis Songs : | I "Morgens steh' ich auf und frage" | The narrator speaks of his daily hope for his beloved to come to him, and his nightly disappointment when she does not. |
| II "Es treibt mich hin" | The narrator is driven hither and thither in excitement about seeing his beloved, but the hours go too slowly for him. |
| III "Ich wandelte unter den Bäumen" | The grieving narrator wanders in the woods and finds that the birds already know the word that brings back his sorrow: they heard it from a pretty young woman. |
| IV "Lieb' Liebchen" | The narrator compares his own heartbeat to a carpenter making a coffin; he wishes the pounding would stop so that he can sleep. |
| V "Schöne wiege meiner Leiden" | The narrator bids farewell to the town in which he first saw his beloved and laments that he ever met her, as he would then never have become so miserable as he is now. |
| VI "Warte, warte wilder Schiffman" | The narrator tells a boatman that he will come to the harbor to leave both Europe and his beloved. He compares the latter to Eve, who brought evil upon mankind. |
| VII "Berg und Burgen schaun herunter" | The narrator is in a boat on the Rhine, which he describes as beautiful but also harboring death within it, like his beloved. |
| VIII "Anfangs wollt' ich fast verzagen" | The narrator remembers how he used to think he could never bear his sorrow. Although he has done so, he does not know how. |
| IX "Mit Myrten und Rosen" | The narrator speaks of his wish to bury his book of songs, now that the songs lie cold and dead. But he also hopes that one day the spirit of love will rejuvenate them and that his beloved will see the book and the songs will speak to her. |
Mark Padmore was born in London and grew up in Canterbury. After
beginning his musical studies on the clarinet he gained a choral
scholarship to King's College, Cambridge and graduated with an honours
degree in music.
He has established a flourishing career in opera, concert and recital. In
the opera house he has worked with such theatrically-minded directors as
Peter Brook, Katie Mitchell, Mark Morris and Deborah Warner. Recent work
includes Les Troyens at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and Handel's
Jephtha at WNO and ENO. He also played Peter Quint in an acclaimed
BBC TV production of Turn of the Screw. Plans include the Evangelist
in a staging of St Matthew Passion at Glyndebourne, Lukas in a
staging of Die Jahreszeiten in Brussels and Berlin and Tom
Rakewell in Stravinsky's Rakes Progress at La Monnaie. He
recently recorded the title role in La
Clemenza di Tito with Rene Jacobs for Harmonia Mundi.
In concert he has performed with many of the world's leading
orchestras including the Berlin,
Vienna and New York Philharmonics, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra,
the LSO and BBCSO. He makes regular appearances with the OAE with
whom he conceived a project exploring Bach's St John Passion which took
place in Aldeburgh and London in 2005 and that will be given further
performances on tour in 2008. In 2007 he made his debut with the
Philadelphia Orchestra under Rattle.
He has given recitals in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Milan,
Moscow, New York and Paris. He appears frequently at the Wigmore Hall in
London where he was invited to perform the three Schubert song cycles in
May 2008.
Simon Lepper comes from Kent
and studied at King's College, Cambridge. At the Royal Academy,
he studied with Dussek. He has appeared as soloist or accompanist
at all the major London venues. He is frequently to be heard on BBC3
and Classic FM. He is an official accompanist for the BBC Singer of
the World in Cardiff.