The Castle by the Sea

Liszt	The Sad Monk
Shelley	Poem: The Spectral Horseman
Liszt	Gretchen (from Faust Symphony)
Wagner	Gretchen
Wagner	Siegfried Idyll
Strauss	The Castle by the Sea
Schubert	Farewell to the Earth
Rushton	On the Edge

A programme combining verse and music illustrating how the sensibilities of Romantic poetry were reflected in associated musical compositions. In the genre of melodrama, those sensibilities were heightened by juxtaposing verse and music within the same piece. This programme offers rarely heard melodramas by Liszt, Strauss and Schubert.

Liszt's The Sad Monk (poem by Lenau) has a Mephistophelean atmosphere deriving from its forward-looking augmented harmonies.

Strauss's beautiful Castle by the Sea (poem by Uhland) is presented in a new chamber arrangement by David Matthews.

Schubert's Farewell to the Earth is a poignant song of valediction in the composer's serene late style.

Wagner's Siegfried Idyll in new arrangement by James Francis Brown

Despite its setting in the Swiss Jungfrau, site of Romantic inspiration (e.g. Byron, Shelley), Rushton's work turns the 19th-century melodrama on its head.