Britten Sinfonia

Barber Evening Concert

Jonathan Berman conductor
James Newby baritone

The tension and anxiety of 1938 is felt in Martinů’s concerto, written at a time when he had left his native Czechoslovakia for Switzerland. Strauss writes from a different perspective, his 1945 elegy lamenting the destruction of Germany and its culture. 

With sung and spoken texts by poet Jacqueline Saphra, scholar Marianne Hirsch, and the composer himself, A Kind of Haunting explores why and how the trauma of the Holocaust holds such a grip on not only the children of victims and survivors, but the grandchildren too. Jewish composer Michael Zev Gordon draws on his grandmother’s memoir, which details the final traces of his grandfather’s life before he was shot in a remote Polish forest. Why is there such an interest in re-visiting – or making present – what was lost so many years before?

• Martinů Concerto for double string orchestra, piano and timpani 
• Strauss Metamorphosen
• Michael Zev Gordon A Kind of Haunting (world premiere tour)