Alessandro Scarlatti - Stabat Mater
Luciano Berio - O King
Luciano Berio - Sequenza III
Aldo Clementi - luCiAno BErio
Luigi Nono - ¿Donde estas hermano?
Luciano Berio - Lied
How many parents have shared in the suffering of Mary?
How many children have been lost?
Interweaving works by three Italian composers marking their 100th birthdays with an anguished baroque masterpiece by Alessandro Scarlatti 300 years after his death, The Facade Ensemble explore human griefs and hopes through the centuries in another compelling Passiontide programme.
Through the medieval text of the Stabat Mater, Alessandro Scarlatti lays bare the experience of Mary as she watches her son die on the cross to redeem the world.
In O King, performed by critically-acclaimed soprano Ana Beard Fernández, Luciano Berio mourns the loss of one of the 20th century’s most beloved figures, Martin Luther King, while in the legendary Sequenza III, award-winning mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean explores the full expressive potential, almost to breaking point, of the human voice. Returning to The Facade Ensemble for the first time in ten years, renowned clarinettist Oliver Pashley evokes singing and stammering in Berio's elegiac Lied.
Never shying away from the political, Luigi Nono creates an anguished memorial to ‘the disappeared’ under the Argentine military junta in the fragile choral texture of ¿Donde estas hermano?, while Aldo Clementi constructs a different style of tribute in his intricate duet luCiAno BErio, performed by flautist Emma Halnan and violinist Greta Mutlu.
Founded at Cambridge University by its artistic director Benedict Collins Rice to champion the music of 20th-century modernism, The Facade Ensemble now brings together Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine and Royal Philharmonic Society award winners and BBC Radio 3 New Generation, Britten Pears and City Music Foundation artists. Currently ensemble-in-residence at The Courtauld Institute, they enjoy a reputation for 'razor-sharp' (The Arts Desk), 'first-rate' (MusicOMH) and 'stunning’ (Robert Hugill) performances, proving time and again that modernist music - sadly often dismissed as 'difficult' - can be richly rewarding.
