PROGRAMME
Benjamin Britten
London (Songs & Proverbs de William Blake)

Hanns Eisler
Diese Stadt (Hollywooder Liederbuch)

Benjamin Britten
The Chimney-Sweep (Songs & Proverbs)

Hanns Eisler
Despite these miseries (Hollywooder Liederbuch)
Verfehlte Liebe

Benjamin Britten
(Songs & Proverbs de William Blake)
The bird a nest
Think in the morning
The tyger

Hanns Eisler
(Hollywood Liederbook Pascal No 2)
The only thing which consoles us
Unter den grünen Pfefferbaumen

Hugo Wolf (Mörike Lieder)
Neue Liebe
Seufzer
Lied vom Winde
Gesang Weylas Jägerlied

— Entracte —

Johannes Brahms
Verzagen
Über die Heide
Wie rafft ich mich auf Nachtigall
Es schauen die Blumen

Gabriel Fauré
Green
Rêve d’amour Au bord de l’eau

Francis Poulenc
Le disparu

Priez pour paix
Montparnasse
Paganini (Métamorphoses no.3)

Simon Keenlyside’s distinguished timbre and profound musicality make each of his recitals an opportunity for a privileged intellectual encounter with the composer. The Englishman offers a programme in which late Romanticism is entwined with the mid-twentieth century, and from which emerges a triple plea for peace in German, English and French. His elegant baritone is the perfect fit with Johannes Brahms’ and Hugo Wolf’s refined melodies, and when he moves on to the post-World War II era, Simon Keenlyside effortlessly bends to the Brechtian irony of Hanns Eisler, to the mystical or mischievous declamations of Poulenc and, above all, to the visionary songs of William Blake, set to music by Benjamin Britten, both great English artists separated by only 86 years and united by their social and political commitment to a world of justice and without violence.