Availability

Score and parts 0-571-56688-X (fp) on sale

See From the Book of Disquiet for the full collection

Programme Notes

When the writer Fernando Pessoa died in in Lisbon in 1935, he left behind a large trunk full of poetry, horoscopes, unfinished stories, essays, plays, translations, letters and journals, typed, handwritten or
scrawled in Portuguese, English and French. He wrote on the backs of letters, on handbills, envelopes and scraps of paper. He described ‘The Book of Disquiet’ as ‘fragments, fragments, fragments’.
 
In the spirit of Pessoa, I have made a loose-leaf collection of short pieces: three for strings (Three Fantasias), three for solo oboe (Three Capriccios), three for alto voice and strings (Three Songs) and three for oboe with strings (Three Arias). The songs are settings of texts by Pessoa and the fantasias and arias have titles drawn from ‘The Book of Disquiet’. The performers can make their own selection and order.
 
© JW

Three Arias

Royal College of Music (London, United Kingdom)

Clare Wilkinson/Fretwork

Three Arias

Moscow Kremlin (Moscow, Russian Federation)

Fretwork/Michael Chance

Three Arias

Wiener Konzerthaus (Vienna, Austria)

Fretwork/Nicholas Daniel

Three Arias

No Venue (Budapest, Hungary)

Fretwork/Nicholas Daniel

Three Arias

No Venue (Radovljica, Slovenia)

Catherine King/Nicholas Daniel/Fretwork