Thea Musgrave: Turbulent Landscapes, Songs for a Winter's Evening & Two's Company

Featuring

Osmo Vänskä
Lisa Milne
Jiří Bělohlávek
Nicholas Daniel
Evelyn Glennie
BBC Symphony Orchestra

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Thea Musgrave

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Composer Biography

Thea Musgrave, a highly respected living composer, was born in Edinburgh in 1928 and studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris before establishing her career in London and later moving to the US.

Compositional Technique

In 'Turbulent Landscapes', Thea Musgrave uses a solo player from the orchestra to characterize the protagonist in each of the six independent movements, heightening the drama.

Composition History

Thea Musgrave's 'Two's Company', a concerto for oboe, percussion, and orchestra, was commissioned by the BBC for Evelyn Glennie and Nicholas Daniel, presenting the challenge of writing for two dissimilar sound worlds.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Thea Musgrave consistently explores new ways to project dramatic situations in her music, sometimes using abstract drama and other times employing specific programmatic ideas, often extending concerto principles.

Compositional Technique

In 'Songs for a Winter's Evening', Thea Musgrave integrates Robert Burns' 18th-century world with a contemporary viewpoint by embedding the original tunes into the musical texture while using a modern melodic and harmonic language.

Composition History

Thea Musgrave's 'Turbulent Landscapes' for orchestra was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2003 and is dedicated to her friends in America.

Composition History

Thea Musgrave's 'Songs for a Winter's Evening' was commissioned to celebrate Robert Burns on the 200th anniversary of his death, leading her to revisit her Scottish heritage.