Availability

Score and part on special sale from the Hire Library

Programme Notes

I have long been an avid reader of Emily Dickinson’s poetry, so when the invitation came from the Cheltenham Festival to compose a work for high baritone, violin and piano, I leapt at the opportunity to set some of her work. The poems I have chosen are not amongst her best known; she had a many-sided character, and not the least of her traits was a sly, playful sense of humour which I was keen to represent strongly alongside her better-known nostalgic pastoralism. Various verbal traits, and even specific words, are common to all the poems in the group, and these suggested a similar network of musical connections, although they are generally kept in the background. I have found that setting the poetry demanded considerable discretion on the part of the music; she was herself notoriously shy, even reclusive, and I wanted my musical setting to reflect this, whilst paradoxically also matching the intensity of the poetry when required.

Julian Anderson

I'm nobody, who are you?

22:30

No Venue (Dartington, Devon, United Kingdom)

Richard Edgar-Wilson/John Flinders

I'm nobody, who are you?

Concert Hall, Helsinki Conservatory of Music (Helsinki, Finland)

Students of Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia

I'm nobody, who are you?

No Venue (Gloucester, United Kingdom)

Jeremy Huw Williams/Madeleine Mitchell/Nigel Foster

I'm nobody, who are you?

Conservatoire de Musique du Québec à Montréal (Montréal, QC, Canada)

Ensemble Contemporain de Montreal

I'm nobody, who are you?

Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House (London, United Kingdom)

Sarah Thurlow/tbc