Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade - Vigil I (Dunedin Consort Commission • World Premiere)

Commissioned in 2020 by Dunedin Consort, Vigil I is a setting of the first poem in the sequence ‘Vigilien’ by Rainer Maria Rilke. The ‘Vigilien’ poems were published in Rilke’s Larenopfer (1895), a cycle of 90 poems that turn their gaze towards Rilke’s native city of Prague at the close of the nineteenth century. The first poem in ‘Vigilien’ speaks of dusk becoming night - of an atmosphere that is charged, wakeful, and expectant. Vigil I employs both Rilke’s German text and an English translation by Jessie Lamont from 1918. Three vocal quartets interweave the German and English texts.
Die falben Felder schlafen schon,
mein Herz nur wacht allein;
The bleak fields are asleep.
My heart alone wakes;
der Abend refft im Hafen schon
sein rotes Segel ein.
The evening in the harbour
Down his red sails takes.
Traumselige Vigilie!
Jetzt wallt die Nacht durchs Land;
Night, guardian of dreams.
Now wanders through the land;
der Mond, die weiße Lilie,
blüht auf in ihrer Hand.
The moon, a lily white.
Blossoms within her hand.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Larenopfer (1895).
Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Jessie Lamont, Poems (1918).
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Dunedin Consort
Rachel Ambrose Evans, Sally Carr*, Claire Evans • soprano
Jessica Gillingwater, Lucy Goddard, Hannah Leggatt* • alto
Malcolm Bennett, David Lee, Sam Leggett* • tenor
Tim Edmundson*, Malachy Frame, Ben McKee •bass
Nicholas Mulroy - director
* = Bridging the Gap 2020-21 Participant (www.dunedin-co...)
Filmed live at Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh on Friday 6 November 2020
Ross Addy & Tommy Slack • Directors of Photography (www.armsandlegs.co.uk)
Matthew Swan • Audio Production

[@FlorenceAnnaMaunders]

This is utterly ravishingly beautiful, both in composition and performance. Wow!