Unidentified Edges (performance)

Unidentified Edges is a song cycle for soprano and cello by Geoff Palmer (University of Aberdeen), composed with my voice in mind, on the poems of Anne Cluysenaar (d. 2014). Cluysenaar was also a scholar especially of the metaphysical poet, Henry Vaughan. Her poetry treats many themes found especially among sixteenth- and seventeenth-century philosophers and poets in very modern ways. In this programme, we juxtapose her poems with the "Dark" songs set by John Dowland, to create a complex intertextual interplay, which is heightened by close relationships that can be found in the musical treatment of the texts by both Palmer and Dowland. The programme is completed by Palmer's setting of "...into the world of light" on extracts of Henry Vaughan's poem, composed as an elegy to Anne Cluysenaar on the third anniversary of her death. The Geoff Palmer cycle makes extreme demands, both technically and interpretatively, on the soloist. I have included a link to a video of extracts of the first performance.