Deal Festival of Music and the Arts

Friday 24th February - 7:30pm

Dominic Harlan - Pianist & Animateur of 'Love Music - Intimate'
Matthew Sharp - Cellist & Baritone
Participants from 'Love Music - Intimate'
Schumann's Dichterliebe (The Poet's Love)
Brahms' E-minor Sonata for Cello and Piano, Opus. 39
Emily Hall 3 Songs (World Premiere)
Music by the participants of 'Love Music - Intimate'
Schumann's most searing song-cycle, inspired by his love for Clara; Brahms' first cello sonata, fuelled by his admiration for Bach and ardour for Clara; three NEW songs by leading UK composer, Emily Hall, channelling the passion and dynamism of this music and this iconic love triangle; new music by the region's brightest composers and performers, participants in DFMA's pioneering outreach programme, Pyramideal. Prepare for an evening of unforgettable, intimate love music.
The aim of this programme is to take you to the pulsating heart of Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms and the towering relationship that bound their music and their lives together. Schumann was a confessional composer: “ O Clara what bliss it is to write songs” – so wrote Schumann to Clara Wieck , to whom he had become secretly engaged, in 1840 – the year in which his love for her produced the miraculous song cycle, Dichterliebe. The whole closely integrated cycle traces an inner narrative, from the initial awakening of love, through rapture, disillusion and despair to tender regret and a final bittersweet, ironic acceptance. Partnership, the one inspiring the other, was also clearly influencing Brahms’ thinking when writing his E minor Sonata – “ the piano should be a partner - often a leading, often a watchful and considerate partner - but it should under no circumstances assume a purely accompanying role". Schumann’s gorgeous harmonies, inspired by loving partnership, are also the creative seed for these new songs by Emily Hall, one of the UK’s brightest young lights on the composing scene and “A hip young thing” (Roxanna Panufnik).
Dominic Harlan, pianist, composer, presenter, Artistic Director of Glyndebourne’s ‘Opera Experience’ and Garsington’s Opera Education - dubbed the world’s most charismatic communicator on the subject of German Art Song by tenor Ian Bostridge - shares the platform with Matthew Sharp - described by the National Theatre as ‘Rostropovich meets Tom Waits’ - and participants from Deal Festival’s latest pioneering song-writing project, “Love Music”.

Ticket Prices £12.00 – Discount 2 Concerts £22.00, 3 Concerts £30.00

(The other two concerts will be on, March 23 @ Deal Town Hall & April 27 @ St Andrews Church