Event

Other Love Songs

The Cheah Chan Duo kicks off their first concert of 2015 with a beautiful programme of love songs by Johannes Brahms, Stephen Hough, and John Corigliano

The ever popular and much beloved 'Liebeslieder' and 'Neue Liebeslieder' of Brahms are paired with Hough's haunting 'Other Love Songs', a setting of diverse poetry from Claude McKay and Langston Hughes to A. E. Housman and Julian of Norwich as a companion to the Brahms. The cycle explore other kinds of love from carnal to religious to patriotic and, as a symbol of this, the accompaniment is for three rather than four hands at one piano. Finishing off this triumvirate is Corigliano's 'Liebeslied', a cheeky tribute to the Brahms waltzes in which the only text set consists of the words 'I love you'. The four singers seem to be involved in various romances with each other which are pointed out by the different and varied stresses placed on one of the three words.

Rounding out the programme are selections from Corigliano's 'Gazebo Dances', a virtuosic tour-de-force for piano four-hands. The title was suggested by the pavilions often seen on village greens in towns throughout the countryside where public band concerts are given on summer evenings. The delights of that sort of entertainment are portrayed in this set of dances.

Joining the Duo are soprano Kathleen Cantrell, mezzo-soprano Catherine Hedberg, tenor Dennis Tobenski, and pianist Conrad Chu. Fall head over heels all over again with this dazzling evening of music bursting with passion, rapture, and the sheer magic and madness of being in love.