Time Marches On

Gosh the month of March has disappeared fast and I can’t believe that it is April next week.  I have two lunch time recitals in the first week and here are the songs that I will be performing 🙂

‘Endless Pleasure, Endless Love’ is from Act 1 of Handel’s 1743 opera ‘Semele’ which was originally presented as an oratorio. Semele is the daughter of Cadmus, the King of Thebes and the story is based on a classical myth; she falls in love with the god Jupiter which ultimately results in her death.

‘Sweet Chance That Led My Steps Abroad’ is a beautiful art song by an English composer called Michael Head from ‘Songs of the Countryside’. A lovely, cheerful song of rainbows and cuckoo’s song.

‘Home’ from the musical Phantom by Maury Yeston is one of my favourite operetta style musical theatre songs. It was based on the 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera. The musical was first performed in Texas in 1991.

‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’ is a German Lieder composed by Schubert means Gretchen at the spinning wheel. It is a lament about lost love and starts: my peace is gone, my heart is heavy, I will find it never and never more. The poem was written by Goethe.

‘Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém’ (Song to the Moon) by Dvorak from Act 1 of Rusalka. Which you can read all about here.

‘Une Flute Invisible’ a French piece written for voice, flute and piano by Saint-Saens, I sing this with Elizabeth Lawton RCS on flute absolutely beautiful, romantic music. It begins: Come! An unseen flute, sighs among the orchards.

It’s my Grandad’s 70^th birthday on Saturday 29^th March, I learnt a couple of Shirley Bassey songs to sing for him and I took the opportunity to sing them at the Tideswell Male Voice Choir annual charity concert last year, which they held in the church next to their rehearsal rooms.  The concert was a mixture of show songs, audience favourites and I also got to sing a classical aria 🙂  I have uploaded ‘I Who Have Nothing’, which is a bit of a departure for me musically and the first time that I had performed it, I hope you enjoy it 🙂

 

 

Then on Sunday 30th March in the UK we celebrate Mothering Sunday or ‘Mother’s Day’ as we call it.  It is celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent and went back to the days where children worked and those in service were allowed to all take this day off to go to church with their mothers.  I’ll post a photograph on facebook on Sunday to celebrate my ….. Mum xxx