Aldeburgh Music

Stephen Johnson presenter
London Sinfonietta
Elgar Howarth conductor

Harrison Birtwistle Cortège; Secret Theatre

To complement Aldeburgh’s Birtwistle celebration and the premiere performances of the new double bill, Stephen Johnson presents a coupling of concert works with their own sense of theatre.

In both the sombre memorial Cortège and Secret Theatre’s dizzyingly virtuosic sequence of scenes, instrumentalists emerge as characters in a drama, declaiming upstage before stepping back out of the limelight into the ensemble. With its mixture of informal discussion, analysis and live music examples, BBC Discovering Music takes an audience to the heart of the music.