Oxford Lieder Festival:Songs for Violin and Voice: Caitlin Hulcup/Jonathan Stone

The superb Australian mezzo-soprano Caitlin Hulcup makes a welcome return to the Festival for a programme of works for voice, violin, and piano, in various combinations, joined by the violinist Jonathan Stone and Oxford Lieder’s Artistic Director, Sholto Kynoch.

Three works are for voice and violin alone: one from the Three Old English Songs by Rebecca Clarke, which are beautiful arrangements by this increasingly recognised composer, simple and expressive and born of both the early music and folk song revivals of the early 20th century; and, by contrast, two from the wildly virtuosic and thrilling Suite for Voice and Violin by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. Works for the full trio include Saint-Saëns’s atmospheric Violons dans le soir, songs by Louis Spohr – a friend of Beethoven’s who was hugely esteemed in his own time – and the late-romantic Russian Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov. Some songs are about, but do not include, the violin, including Wolf’s witty ‘Wie lange schon war immer mein verlangen’ and Poulenc’s ‘Paganini’. And they conclude with Saint-Saëns’s ‘Danse Macabre’ which was indeed a song before it became a perennial violin showpiece!

This concert will be streamed completely live from the Holywell Music Room. Shortly afterwards, it will also be available to watch again (using the same ticket and link) until 1 November 2020. Click here for further information on how tickets will work this year.