On Buying A Horse: The songs of Judith Weir
January 2007
A new CD of compositions by Judith Weir has just been issued by Signum Records in collaboration with BBC Radio 3 (SIGCD087). The artists are Ailish Tynan (soprano), Susan Bickley (mezzo-soprano), Andrew Kennedy (tenor) and Iain Burnside (piano).
This fascinating survey of Weir's vocal music features On Buying a Horse (1991), a tribute to the recently axed Kent Opera - Ox Mountain was Covered by Trees (1990), Songs from the Exotic (1987),Scotch Minstrelsy (1982), The Voice of Desire (2003), A Spanish Liederbooklet (1988), a "huge but brief grand opera about the Vikings" - King Harald's Saga (1979) and the resetting of verse by Rellstab first made famous by Schubert - Ständchen (1997).
"It is songs, on the whole, that make the musical world go round; but 'contemporary classical' composers don't seem to write them very much these days. During the times when I was writing the many parts of this collection, I felt I was taking a holiday from the world of new music to practise an ancient craft.
No one thing led me to write these songs these ways. Sometimes it was the voice, the words, the pianist, the occasion, usually a combination of several. I have no idea why one singer ends up with Chinese philosophy whilst another has to sing a Serbian song about trousers."