..Most impressive, indeed riveting, was Hesketh's ambitious song cycle, an important contribution to the genre, some 25 minutes long in five vocal sections plus an instrumental interlude, after which Rodney Clarke, glass in hand, rose to celebrate the glories of wine, which "shows man's mettle, marks free born from slave, noble from base". With sensitive deployment of instrumental support by the full ensemble (the clarinet up in Wigmore Hall's gallery) this made for a rousing finale to a special concert.
6 March 2010
Ensemble 10/10 concert, Wigmore Hall, London
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Peter Grahame Woolf