Ryan Wigglesworth: Echo and Narcissus

Ryan Wigglesworth, Principal Guest Conductor of the Hallé, conducts his own orchestral works in this first full-length portrait album of his compositions. The album includes the powerful Echo and Narcissus, whose premiere was one of the highlights of the 2014 Aldeburgh Festival. Superbly performed by tenor Mark Padmore and mezzo Pamela Helen Stephen, with a female semi-chorus and the multi-talented Ryan Wigglesworth on piano, this piece sets Ted Hughes' text 'Echo and Narcissus' from his Tales from Ovid.

The poem ‘Keep your eyes open’ by John Berryman is married with poems by Robert Browning, Egon Schiele and Arthur Rimbaud in the song cycle Augenlieder, written for and performed by soprano Claire Booth, with the Hallé. The work received the vocal prize at the 2010 British Composer Awards.

Locke’s Theatre was commissioned for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Aldeburgh Festival to celebrate Benjamin Britten's 100th birthday. Aware of Britten’s own revival and adoption of English music, Wigglesworth has drawn inspiration from Matthew Locke, the leading English stage composer in the period before Purcell. Wigglesworth presents arrangements of three of Locke's movements, interspersed with his own musical responses.

Other works on this album are the Violin Concerto, performed by Hungarian violinist Barnabás Keleman and A First Book of Inventions for chamber orchestra.