Page 584 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024
P. 584
Claire Booth
© Marcus Roth | Britten Pears Arts
That seventh poem is instrumentally parsimonious, with no piano and only the flute
throughout. Philippa Davies’ tone and control were remarkable, even when the composer
asks for pppp, and then requires softer playing still! But each member of the Nash
Ensemble took their solo moment in the sun (or rather moon), and the ensemble illuminated
the counterpoint whatever the very varied combinations of instruments being used. Alasdair
Beatson was tireless, precise and sensitive at the keyboard.
Pierrot lunaire has had a few successors in its modernist use of
the commedia del’arte tradition, none more controversial than Harrison Birtwistle’s
opera Punch and Judy. That had its premiere at the 1967 Aldeburgh Festival, when it drove
Benjamin Britten from the Jubilee Hall. Would it be mischievous to suggest that the
incoming Director might put the two works together on a double bill, perhaps in
a commedia dell’arte-themed Festival?
Roy’s accommodation was funded by Britten Pears Arts.
