I’m in Cambridge all this weekend for two wonderful events – on Sunday 15th, the Gianni Schicchi tour continues at Cambridge Arts Theatre (tickets here), but first, I’m guest leading the Cambridge Philharmonic on Saturday 14th at West Road, in a performance of Antonín Dvořák’s amazing Requiem (tickets here).
It’s a new piece for me; perhaps not as well known as much of Dvorak’s other work, but it is really quite epic, and surprisingly virtuosic!
There’s a really good summary of the piece on this Antonin Dvorak website, and a performance of the full work (filmed in the 1980s in Prague) on YouTube, here:
There’s a powerful melancholic energy that runs throughout. It’s a deep and cathartic setting of the text – and well worth a few hours of total musical immersion.
If you’re despairing at what’s in the news, and feeling powerless to change the direction of the world, a piece of music like this feels like a useful and necessary expression of humanity.
So much in today’s world doesn’t make a lot of sense. But human musical expression on this scale? Yes, I believe in this!