Britten’s Serenade: Dowland, Britten and MacMillan

Legendary tenor Mark Padmore joins Brighton Philharmonic Strings for a dazzling programme: haunting English poetry, jazzy John Dowland and a wild Scottish ceilidh.

Arguably Britten’s greatest work for his life-long companion and muse, Peter Pears, his Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings premiered at London’s Wigmore Hall in 1943. Britten had a superb knowledge and deep love of English poetry, and his settings of Tennyson, Blake, Keats and medieval lyric remain unsurpassed in their drama, insight and intensity. Pears’ tenor part is taken here by the phenomenal Mark Padmore, while the virtuosic horn part, composed for the masterful Dennis Brain, is performed by BPO’s young principal horn Alexei Watkins.

Wrapped around this masterpiece are Britten’s exhilarating Young Apollo, Joanna MacGregor’s dreamy, jazzy arrangements of Dowland, and Britten’s favourite composer, Purcell. To finish, James MacMillan’s concerto for piano and strings: part love letter to Scottish folk music and part satire on political hypocrisy, it ends with the wildest imaginable ceilidh, replete with drumming, stamping and hooting.

‘Mark Padmore can sing with penetrating intensity, and he’s a riveting actor. This is eloquent singing driven by astute and sensitive attention to the texts.’ – The New York Times

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