Sounds & Sweet Airs

Inspired by Caliban’s lyrical soliloquy from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, this concert invites you to immerse yourself in the sounds and sweet airs of music inspired by the Bard. Two works directly inspired by Shakespeare’s play anchor the concert: Paul Moravec’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Tempest Fantasy and Thomas Adès' Court Studies, both of which capture the ethereal spirit and gripping characters of the play.

Shakespeare’s figure looms large in the latter two works. English Baroque master Henry Purcell’s fantasies for viol consort are close cousins with music of Shakespeare’s time. His Fantazia Upon One Note experiences a new life in a new arrangement by Oliver Knussen, which itself is a part of the tercentenary homage A Purcell Garland. Rounding out the program is Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 17, retroactively titled “The Tempest” — a name so given by early Beethoven biographer Anton Schindler, who felt the music evoked various characters of the play.

Knussen, …upon one note | Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 17 “The Tempest” | Adès, Court Studies from “The Tempest” | Moravec, Tempest Fantasy