Liebesglück hat tausend Zungen
This Tuesday 3rd May at 1600 sees the performance of the only piece I have in this year's Plug festival at the RSAMD in Glasgow, Liebesglück hat tausend Zungen – a lied, for soprano and piano. Now, why on earth, you say would anyone in this day and age want to write a lied of all things?! Good question: I'm not sure I know the answer. However, the fact is that the unifying theme of this year's festival is deemed to be something called the Glasgow Liederbuch, to which all the composer have been invited to contribute. Which means, two and several bit concerts devoted to new lieder. Written within rather strict guidelines, I have to say, voice and piano only, no electronics, German poetic text from the era… basically, we're not allowed to do anything which Schubert didn't do. (So, eg dying of syphillis and not finishing symphonies is ok, playing inside the piano is not.)
There's a .pdf file of the score if anyone is particularly curious to see in what way I've tackled this rather odd commission. Have I done anything Schubert wouldn't have done? I think so, I think so :)