Iain Cameron's Diary
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2012-11-09 - 6:27 p.m. After the recital I made my way to Watersons on Gower St. I ended up buying a collection of essays by TS Kuhn put together after his death to show how he developed the ideas he launched in the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. TSK's book made a big impact on me in my teens. Then on to St Peters in Eaton Square for a programme by David Norris and St John Tomlinson of settings of Michelangelo's verses by Britten, Wolf and Shostakovitch. This was magnificent. The Britten was originally written for tenor but JT and DN rearranged it for bass. In Britten's career these seven sonnet settings are the first vocal composition where he reveals his true potential. The Shostakovitch settings are from the end of his career and represent his public articulation of black thoughts that he had been keeping to himself. It has emerged that I have seen JT before in Parsifal at the ENO. Michelangelo was an innovative poet on top of everything else. The combined effect of these two recitals are to make me want to do sonnet settings myself. |