Pärt Cantus in Memoriam
Anna Clyne Within her Arms
Grażyna Bacewicz Concerto for String Orchestra (1948)
Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht

Into the Night presents an evening of music shaped by stillness, intimacy, and heightened emotional concentration.

The programme opens with Cantus in Memoriam by Arvo Pärt, a work of extreme restraint and control, built from simple materials and unfolding with inexorable logic. Its spare textures and slow descent establish an atmosphere of quiet gravity. That sense of closeness continues in Within Her Arms by Anna Clyne, a piece written for strings alone and shaped by warmth, lyricism, and direct emotional address. Its writing draws the listener inward, focusing attention on line, colour, and breath.

After the interval, Grażyna Bacewicz’s Concerto for String Orchestra (1948) brings urgency and momentum. Sharp-edged rhythms, driving counterpoint, and clear formal direction give the work a muscular clarity that contrasts strikingly with the surrounding stillness. The concert concludes with Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, a work poised at the threshold of the twentieth century, where late-Romantic intensity is stretched to its expressive limits.

Please join James for a pre-concert talk at 6.30pm

Please note that general booking for this event will open on Thursday 26 February