I realised that it’s been nearly a year since I was at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont… Working there last Summer was, as ever, an inspirational experience, and a highlight was surely working with Spencer lang on Tippett’s Songs for Achilles.
I’m returning to these songs with tenor Robert Murray when I arrive at the Aldeburgh Festival later this month and grabbed the score from my library to look them through this morning… only to realise that it was in another copy that I worked out the fingerings and scribbled them down (the score is notably bare of suggestions). So there’s a blank slate, something that’s slightly irritating because I don’t have last year’s ideas to hand; but perhaps this is the best way to come back to something you’ve worked on before.
Sean Shibe 