Solitude James Gilchrist & Anna Tilbrook

• Henry Purcell (1659 - 1695):
• 1 Oh Solitude, Z. 406 06:13
• Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828): Einsamkeit, D. 620:
• 2 Einsamkeit, D. 620: Gib mir die Fülle der Einsamkeit! 03:59
• 3 Einsamkeit, D. 620: Gib mir die Fülle der Thätigkeit! 02:59
• 4 Einsamkeit, D. 620: Gib mir das Glück der Geselligkeit! 03:16
• 5 Einsamkeit, D. 620: Gib mir die Fülle der Seligkeit! 03:08
• 6 Einsamkeit, D. 620: Gib mir die Fülle der Düsterkeit! 03:08
• 7 Einsamkeit, D. 620: Gib mir die Weihe der Einsamkeit! 03:33
• Jonathan Dove (b. 1959): Under Alter'd Skies:
• 8 Under Alter'd Skies: No. 1, Fair Ship 04:05
• 9 Under Alter'd Skies: No. 2, Calm Is the Morn 03:51
• 10 Under Alter'd Skies: No. 3, To-night the Winds Begin to Rise 01:42
• 11 Under Alter'd Skies: No. 4, With Weary Steps 02:41
• 12 Under Alter'd Skies: No. 5, Be Near Me 01:53
• 13 Under Alter'd Skies: No. 6, Peace, Come Away 02:48
• 14 Under Alter'd Skies: No. 7, Thy Voice Is on the Rolling Air 02:45
• Samuel Barber (1910 - 1981): Hermit Songs, Op. 29:
• 15 Hermit Songs, Op. 29: No. 1, At Saint Patrick's Purgatory 01:47
• 16 Hermit Songs, Op. 29: No. 2, Church Bells at Night 01:01
• 17 Hermit Songs, Op. 29: No. 3, St. Ita's Vision 03:39
• 18 Hermit Songs, Op. 29: No. 4, The Heavenly Banquet 01:26
• 19 Hermit Songs, Op. 29: No. 5, The Crucifixion 02:22
• 20 Hermit Songs, Op. 29: No. 6, Sea-Snatch 00:46
• 21 Hermit Songs, Op. 29: No. 7, Promiscuity 00:59
• 22 Hermit Songs, Op. 29: No. 8, The Monk and His Cat 02:44
• 23 Hermit Songs, Op. 29: No. 9, The Praises of God 01:01
• 24 Hermit Songs, Op. 29: No. 10, The Desire for Hermitage 04:03
• Total Runtime 01:05:49

Info for Solitude

James Gilchrist’s theme for this recital, Solitude, is reflected in varied and contrasting ways by the four works. In his booklet note, he describes solitude as ‘A state of being that we need, that perhaps we overlook too easily, that is harder to achieve and harder to endure and understand than we expect’.

Henry Purcell’s O! Solitude, my sweetest choice (in the arrangement by Benjamin Britten) focuses on twin themes of solitude: the peace found in the meditative state and the pain felt by being separated from loved ones.

Schubert’s Einsamkeit represents the importance of solitude as an important theme in the German romantic tradition: yearning for homeland, the lonely wanderer, and separated lovers appear again and again in the poetry, prose, and music of this era. In Under Alter’d Skies, Jonathan Dove explores the unwanted solitude of grief and loss. The cycle sets excerpts of In Memoriam, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s response to the sudden death of his friend Arthur Hallam.

The programme closes with Samuel Barber’s Hermit Songs, settings of the marginal jottings of mediaeval Irish monks as they copied or illuminated manuscripts. These extraordinary texts show the anonymous men, who chose a life of solitude and devotion to God, to be every bit as human as the rest of us!

James Gilchrist, tenor
Anna Tilbrook, piano

James Gilchrist
began his working life as a doctor, turning to a full-time career in music in 1996. His musical interest was fired at a young age, singing first as a chorister in the choir of New College, Oxford, and later as a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge.

James’ extensive concert repertoire has seen him perform in major concert halls throughout the world with conductors including Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Roger Norrington, Bernard Labadie, Harry Christophers, Harry Bicket and the late Richard Hickox. Recent highlights have included Britten’s Church Parables with performances in St Petersburg, London and at the Aldeburgh Festival, Handel’s L’Allegro il Penseroso ed il Moderato with the Mark Morris Dance Group at the Teatro Real, Madrid, Solomon with Les Violons du Roy, Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri and Die Schöpfung at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Britten’s Nocturne with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo and War Requiem with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. In J.S. Bach’s great Passions of St John and St Matthew, James works consistently at the highest level and is recognised as the finest Evangelist of his generation; as one recent BBC Proms reviewer noted, ‘he hasn’t become a one-man Evangelist industry by chance’.

A prolific and versatile recitalist, James enjoys imaginative and varied programming in collaborations with pianists Anna Tilbrook and Julius Drake, and harpist Alison Nicholls. Recent appearances include a Schubertiade weekend at St John Smith Square and Schwanengesang coupled with Beethoven An die Ferne Geliebte at the Wigmore Hall. James recently returned to the Wigmore Hall to begin his project with Anna Tilbrook, Schumann and the English Romantics, pairing Schumann song cycles with new commissions from leading composers, Sally Beamish, Julian Philips and Jonathan Dove, setting English poetry of the Romantic period.

James’ impressive discography includes the title role in Albert Herring and Vaughan Williams’ A Poisoned Kiss for Chandos, St John Passion with the Academy of Ancient Music, the Finzi song cycle Oh Fair To See, Elizabethan Lute Songs When Laura Smiles with Matthew Wadsworth, Leighton Earth Sweet Earth, Vaughan Williams On Wenlock Edge, Finzi songs and Britten’s Winter Words for Linn Records and the critically-acclaimed recordings of Schubert’s song cycles for Orchid Classics. James and Anna Tilbrook have recently released a new disc of Schumann song cycles for Linn Records.

Recent engagements include performances with The King’s Consort at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest; concert performances of Semele with Concerto Köln, and Hercules with the English Concert; Handel’s Messiah with Boston Handel and Haydn Society; Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra in Toronto, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and with the Academy of Ancient Music; a recital with Julius Drake at the Concertgebouw and Haydn’s Creation with Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia and in a new staged production for Garsington Opera and Ballet Rambert, as well as appearing as the Evangelist in St Matthew Passion across Europe with the Monteverdi Choir.

This season, highlights include Handel L’Allegro with Stuttgart Bachakademie; Haydn Creation at Sadler’s Wells (Garsington Opera / Ballet Rambert) and in Denmark (Aarhus Symphony Orchestra); Christmas Oratorio across Europe with Windsbacher Knabenchor; and appearances at the Lammermuir, Roman River, Hatfield House and Oxford Lieder festivals. James will also curate a concert series of Bach and Purcell for the Academy of Ancient Music, and appears in the role of Reverend Horace Adams in Britten’s Peter Grimes for Bergen National Opera and the Edinburgh International Festival.

Anna Tilbrook
is one of Britain’s most exciting pianists, with a considerable reputation in song recitals and chamber music. She made her debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1999 and has since become a regular performer at Europe’s major concert halls and festivals.

Anna has collaborated with many leading singers and instrumentalists including James Gilchrist, Lucy Crowe, Sarah Tynan, Emma Bell, Barbara Hannigan, Willard White, Ashley Riches, Stephan Loges, Chris Maltman, Ian Bostridge, Barbara Bonney, Victoria Simmonds, Christine Rice, Iestyn Davies, Natalie Clein, Nick Daniel, Philip Dukes, Guy Johnston, Louisa Tuck and Jack Liebeck. For Welsh National Opera she has accompanied Angela Gheorghiu, Jose Carreras and Bryn Terfel in televised concerts.

With the distinguished British tenor James Gilchrist she has made acclaimed recordings of 20th-century English song for Linn records, including Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge (a finalist in the Gramophone Awards 2008), the cycles for tenor and piano by Gerald Finzi, songs by Britten and Leighton and the song cycles of Robert Schumann. For Chandos, James and Anna recorded a disc of Songs by Lennox Berkeley and most recently the Songs and Chamber Music of Vaughan Williams with Philip Dukes.

In 2009 they embarked on a series of recordings for Orchid records of the Schubert Song Cycles and their disc of Die Schone Mullerin received great critical acclaim and was Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, November 2009. Schubert’s Schwanengesang along with Beethoven’s An die Ferne Geliebte was released early in 2011 and their recording of Winterreise was Record of the week in The Independent and was made recording of the month in the 2011 Christmas issue of BBC Music Magazine – “It is a profoundly considered reading, considered enough for some of the songs to be as penetrating as in almost any performance I have heard.” (Michael Tanner).

Anna 2With String Quartets such as the Carducci, Fitzwilliam, Elias, Coull, Barbirolli and Sacconi, she has performed a wide range of chamber music from Mozart’s Piano Concertos K414 and K415 to the Piano Quartets and Quintets of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Shostakovich, Brahms, Elgar, Bridge and Fauré.

Recent engagements have included her Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam debut with Lucy Crowe, recitals in Carnegie Hall, New York, Wigmore Hall, deSingel Antwerp, the Anima Mundi festival in Pisa, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Musee des Tissus Lyon, Wroclaw Cantans and appearances at the Edinburgh, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Oxford Lieder and West Cork Chamber Music Festivals. Anna regularly broadcasts for Radio 3 and has also curated a number of series of concerts for them including in 2017 marking Hull as City of Culture with James Gilchrist and the Sacconi Quartet and in April 2018 a Big Chamber Day at Saffron Hall entitled ‘Tchaikovsky and his world’ featuring singers Anush Hovhannisyan, Caitlin Hulcup, Alessandro Fisher and Ashley Riches.

Born in Hertfordshire, Anna studied music at York University and at the Royal Academy of Music with Julius Drake, where she was awarded a Fellowship and in 2009 became an Associate. She also won many major international accompaniment prizes including the AESS Bluthner prize and the award for an outstanding woman musician from the ROSL.

Booklet for Solitude