Kathryn Rudge, mezzo-soprano: Wagner, Elgar, Britten & Korngold

"Sea-sound, like violins" / "Meeresklang, der Geigen gleicht" Roden Noel

Richard Wagner: Overture to "The Flying Dutchman"
Edward Elgar: "Sea Pictures" op. 37
Benjamin Britten: "Four Sea Interludes" from "Peter Grimes"
Erich Wolfgang Korngold: Suite from the film music for "The Sea Hawk" ("The Lord of the Seven Seas")

As much as the sea was the source of inspiration for the evening's compositions, the composers go far beyond mere description in their works. After the stormy opening of his overture to "The Flying Dutchman", Richard Wagner soon turns his attention to the fate of the protagonists of his opera - and the restlessness of the sea becomes a battle against his own fate. Edward Elgar's song cycle "Sea Pictures" was published in 1899 - the same year as Sigmund Freud's work of the century on the "Interpretation of Dreams". It may be a coincidence, and yet the metaphorical depth of "Sea Pictures" stems from the same zeitgeist as Freud's reflections. The four interludes that Benjamin Britten took from his opera "Peter Grimes", rearranged and published in 1945 as "Four Sea Interludes" for the concert hall, are also images of the soul and the sea between day and night, calm and storm. Erich Korngold wrote his music for "The Lord of the Seven Seas" in 1940 in exile in America, close in time and geography to Britten. If this film score is given the freedom to unfold in the concert hall without a pirate ship and Errol Flynn on the screen, the most exciting orchestral facets of Korngold's composition become audible.