Name: World Premiere: Letters to a Young Poet
Start: 2023-06-24T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2023-06-24T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Hoffmann Building (Snape Maltings)

Organization

Aldeburgh Festival

Orchestra

Brodsky Quartet

World Premiere: Letters to a Young Poet

Snape

United Kingdom

Hoffmann Building (Snape Maltings)

Britten Studio

World Premiere: Letters to a Young Poet: String Quartet in F Major, M. 35 Ravel (+1 More)

Public

Private

String Quartet in F Major, M. 35

String Quartet in G minor, op. 10

Approved

World premiere: letters to a young poet: String Quartet in F, Op.35 (+1 More)

The cherished "Letters to a Young Poet" of Rainer Maria Rilke come together with Ravel and Debussy’s string quartets in an inventive union of music and text.

Directed by Bill Barclay, with music performed by the Brodsky Quartet, this concert-theatre work explores poet Rilke’s famous letters to the “young poet” Franz Kappus, as well as the letters of the young poet himself (remarkably, Franz’s half of the exchange has only come to light in recent years).

Both born in 1875, Rilke and Ravel each wrote their iconic works in Paris at the age of 28, at the same time, and just a few streets apart. These twinned masterpieces dance together across time and space, forecasting the future of romanticism as modernist thought took over Paris.

Debussy composed his only string quartet just ten years earlier, also at the same stage of life. His influence on Ravel, who structured his quartet in identical ways, becomes clear hearing the works back to back. Their musical conversation naturally mirrors the mentorship between the poets. Debussy is ten years older than Ravel, while Kappus is ten years younger than Rilke. The meditation between these four minds is a pocket kaleidoscope of Belle Epoque Paris.

English

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Ensemble