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Ryan Wigglesworth Conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the UK Premiere of his Song Cycle, Till Dawning

Jan. 25, 2023

On January 20, Ryan Wigglesworth conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra and soprano Elizabeth Watts in the UK Premiere of his song cycle, Till Dawning at the Barbican. Wigglesworth notes:

"These four poems, taken from George Herbert’s collection posthumously titled The Temple, form a sequence marking the principal events of Holy Week. First ‘The Agonie’ looks back to the moment before Christ’s betrayal and arrest when, during his Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, his sweat was, in St. Luke’s words, ‘as it were great drops of blood falling on the ground.’ The final stanza, taking in references to the Eucharist, moves to St. John the Evangelist’s account of the Crucifixion, an episode dealt with very differently in the extended allegory of the second song, Redemption. Here, the dual legalistic/spiritual meanings of ‘to redeem’ are kept in playful balance and, after the virtuoso storytelling and beautifully observed details of everyday life, Herbert’s astonishing climax – the moment the farmer-protagonist recognizes the victim of the mugging to be his long-sought landlord – arrives with a calculated shock.

Further contrasting perspectives of Christ’s Resurrection are presented in ‘The Dawning’ (a later ‘rewrite’ of Herbert’s better-known poem ‘Easter’, beginning ‘Rise heart’) and ‘Easter II’, one of the poet’s supreme achievements.

Till Dawning is bound together by a recurring single melody, stated successively by the woodwind and solo soprano at the outset of the first song. Hidden for much of ‘Redemption’, the melody reappears, complete, at the beginning of ‘The Dawning’ and forms the basis of the final, climactic chorale in the closing song.

One can only fail to do justice to Herbert, perhaps the most musical of all poets. But the challenge posed by his jewel-like lyrics – as the efforts of so many previous composers attest – exerts a pull too strong to resist."

Till Dawning was premiered at the Grafenegg Festival 2018 by soprano Sophie Bevan and the Tonkünstler-Orchester, with Wigglesworth conducting.

Ryan Wigglesworth describes the inspiration behind the composition of Till Dawning:


To learn more about Ryan Wigglesworth, visit: schott-music.com.

Ryan Wigglesworth
Till Dawning (2018)
settings of texts by George Herbert
for soprano and orchestra
3(2&3.pic).2.ca.2.bcl(cbcl).2.cbsn-4.3.3.1-perc-cel.hp-str
21'

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