Music + Word: A Midsummer Nocturne

About

Writers and musicians have long sought to capture the long light and shifting mood of midsummer in their work.

This midsummer's eve, join us for a programme of music and words that begins in the walled garden before moving into the atmospheric Hay Barn. The evening brings together readings and works for piano in dialogue with the long summer evening. Featuring texts by Virginia Woolf, Thomas Mann, T. S. Eliot and John Clare alongside music by Felix Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin and Franz Schubert, the programme traces shifting light and heightened atmosphere of the longest day of the year.

The centrepiece of the evening is Franz Schubert's Piano Sonata in G major on its bicentenary. It's one of his final works, beloved for its breadth, lyricism and expansiveness.

There will be 6.30pm pre-show talk about the programme by Paul Boucher, curator and research director of The Montagu Music Collection at Boughton House.

Music

Mendelssohn - Nocturne from A Midsummer Night's Dream

Chopin - Nocturne

Schubert - Sonata in G major (D. 894)

Words

Thomas Mann - from The Magic Mountain

John Clare - from Summer Images

TS Eliot - from Four Quartets

Woolf - from Summer's Night

Roger Robinson - A Portable Paradise

Shakespeare - from A Midsummer Night's Dream