Britten:
On this Island, Op. 11

Marsey:
Removal and other powers

Finzi:
Before and after Summer, Op. 16

Ward:
Summer Dresses
Stranger-Friends

In 1914 Thomas Hardy wrote of ‘our indifferent century’; a generation later W.H. Auden urgently sought to fuse the political with the creative.Today, profoundly unsettled by the turn of the world’s politics, three artists respond with a programme that explores the changes and challenges we face presently, but one that also offers hope, levity andeven a degree of irreverence, and never loses sight of the joy and beauty of nature.Hardy and Auden found their perfect musical counterparts in the songwriting of Finzi and Britten; in our own times William Marsey and Joanna Ward add their own musical voices of political urgency and wistful yearning.