Britten Thematic Catalogue

Beta Version

BTC1125 THE POET'S ECHO

For high voice and piano, op. 76
Composition date: 23 Aug 1965
First performance: 29 Aug 1965 >>
Type of performance: Concert performance
Location: Philhamonic Concert Hall, Yerevan, Armenia
Performance details:

Galina Vishnevskaya sop, Mstislav Rostropovich pf

Nos 2 and 5 only

Genre: Solo vocal
Text: Alexander Pushkin (set in Russian)
Duration: 16'
Dedication: 'For Galya and Slava'

Galina Pavlovna Vishnevskaya (b. 1926), Russian soprano; and her husband Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich (1927-2007), Russian cellist, pianist, conductor, and humanitarian.

Notes

Written during a holiday in the Soviet Union with Galina Vishnevskaya and Mstislav Rostropovich. Briten bought a copy of the poems (in Russian with a parallel English translation) on the outward journey but he had begun thinking about the possibility of setting Russian texts at least as early at 1963.

Numbers

  • 1 Echo
  • 2 My heart . . .
  • 3 Angel
  • 4 The nightingale and the rose
  • 5 Epigram
  • 6 Lines written during a sleepless night

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