Verre de Venise

These French poems bear the
unmistakable stamp of Rilke’s masterful impetus and imagination at the fullness
of his maturity. And at the heart of these poems is much the same vision as
that found in the Sonnets and the Elegies: the poetic transformation of the
world as a result of intense attractiveness to the things of this world. A Poulin [1986]

Although
best known for his German poetry, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a substantial body
of poetry in French – nearly 400 poems – written mainly between 1922 and 1926.
Critics generally agree that it is lighter and more playful than his work in
German, whilst retaining Rilke’s signature qualities of lyricism, ambiguity and
nostalgia at its core.

The
collection of poems chosen for this cycle all attend to his proximity to nature
and often incorporate or allude to ethereal images such as angels and heaven.
Rilke creates vastness – paradoxically evoking a sense of spaciousness within
exceptionally miniature forms. The open-ended, fragmentary nature of his
writing, allows the text to float as if suspended, providing only momentary
feelings of completeness. It has been said that for Rilke the poem records at
best a fleeting instant when the work of
art and life are mutually realised.

Verre de Venise was a co-commission by
Aldeburgh, Aix-en-Provence
and Verbier Festivals, where it was performed by Ben Johnson, Aline Piboule and
Benyounes Quartet.

The
composer is an outstanding young English composer currently based in Berlin. She studied with
Joe Cutler at the Birmingham Conservatoire, with Mark Anthony Turnage at the
Royal College of Music and in 2008 at Tanglewood Music Centre. In 2011 she was
made Honorary Member of Birmingham Conservatoire and was Composer-in-Residence
at Oxford Lieder Festival. This year sees premieres at Verbier and the BBC
Proms.