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Program Notes

Program Notes from Argyle Arts

Britten & Shostakovich

Both showed a natural attraction to the theater and narrative music. Both showed a fascination with reinventing neglected baroque and classical forms. Both spent a lifetime walking the tightrope between innovation and tradition.

And each managed to achieve the great contradiction of becoming the iconic symbol of their national musical establishment while somehow remaining a rebel and social outcast

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Britten, Dowland, and Purcell

In John Dowland, Britten found a kindred spirit who shared his love for the beauty of the English language and a rare gift for illuminating poetry with music. And in Henry Purcell, he discovered both a shared affinity for the theater and a sense of musical structure and style ideally matched to his own.

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Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7 Leningrad

Classical music is filled with pieces that depict stories and historical events— fairy tales (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice), autobiography (Ein Heldenleben), even hallucinations (Symphonie fantastique) and battles (the 1812 Overture). But only one has been composed while under fire from the very artillery it portrayed.

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