Musicians Wrestle Everywhere

CBSO Centre, Birmingham
Berkley Street, Birmingham
United Kingdom

Conductor: Clement Power
Soprano: Susan Narucki


A concert, focusing in part on music created using ‘found’ material, provides the perfect opportunity to bring back Judith Weir’s Musicians Wrestle Everywhere. This a thirteen minute chamber concerto inspired by the exotic soundscape of Weir's urban environment, London SE17, was premiered by BCMG in 1995.

BCMG/SAM Apprentice Composer-in-Residence Seán Clancy’s new piece uses both ‘found’ text and popular music as its inspiration. Findetotenlieder is an extended song in six verses, with instrumental interludes, setting text drawn from Gabriel Orozco’s artwork Obit to music very loosely based on Someone Great by LCD Soundsystem. Obit, recently exhibited at Tate Modern, is itself a collection of found objects – single peculiar lines taken from New York Times obituaries.

Premiered by the London Sinfonietta in March 2011, Feldman’s Sixpenny Editions alludes to the popular sheet music Barry used to avidly collect and listen to as a boy.

The second half of the programme is entirely taken up by Gérard Grisey’s ‘Four songs to cross the threshold’, which draws on poems of Christian, Egyptian, Greek and Mesopotamian origin that tell of the journey from life to death. Grisey was a major figure in French 20th century music, and a leading exponent of the so-called ‘spectral’ style of composition. This song cycle was, in an uncanny coincidence, his last completed work before his sudden and untimely death in 1998.

There will be a pre-concert talk at 6.30pm with Seán Clancy and Stephen Newbould, open to all ticket holders, lasting approx. 30 minutes.


Judith Weir : Musicians Wrestle Everywhere
Seán Clancy : Findetotenlieder
Gerald Barry : Feldman’s Sixpenny Editions
Gerard Grisey : Quatre chants pour franchir le Seuil