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- Anthony Payne
The World's Winter (1976)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
- 1(pic)11(Eb,bcl)0/1000/hp/str(1.0.1.1.0)
- soprano
- 17 min
Programme Note
THE WORLD'S WINTER was commissioned by the Chelteham Festival with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain. The first performance was given by the Nash Ensemble with Jane Manning (soprano) on Sunday 4 July 1976.
I have always been fascinated by the possibility of holding totally opposed views with equal conviction; an expression of our awareness of the variety of forces at work in the world. Consequently, when searching for words appropriate to what was for me a specially important work - the first I was to write for my wife and a mark of my love and admiration on our tenth wedding anniversary - I was immediately struck by Tennyson's remarkable diptych 'Nothing Will Die' and 'All Things Will Die', for it dealt with that suitably profound theme, holding opposites in equilibrium.
Moreover, the verse patterns automatically suggested musical structures, and the verbal images, musical images. The second poem mirrors the form of the first, for example, except that the central sequence is extended, hinting at the musical concept of recapitulation cum-development, and the fact that the second poem presents the dark side of the first yields fruitful ideas of trasformation and variation for the latter stages of the work.
The Ensemble consists of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, harp, and string trio.
I have always been fascinated by the possibility of holding totally opposed views with equal conviction; an expression of our awareness of the variety of forces at work in the world. Consequently, when searching for words appropriate to what was for me a specially important work - the first I was to write for my wife and a mark of my love and admiration on our tenth wedding anniversary - I was immediately struck by Tennyson's remarkable diptych 'Nothing Will Die' and 'All Things Will Die', for it dealt with that suitably profound theme, holding opposites in equilibrium.
Moreover, the verse patterns automatically suggested musical structures, and the verbal images, musical images. The second poem mirrors the form of the first, for example, except that the central sequence is extended, hinting at the musical concept of recapitulation cum-development, and the fact that the second poem presents the dark side of the first yields fruitful ideas of trasformation and variation for the latter stages of the work.
The Ensemble consists of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, harp, and string trio.
Media
The World's Winter: I. Nothing will die
The World's Winter: II. All things will die