★★★★ from Guardian, Telegraph, Times & Bachtrack for Birtwistle Tribute at QEH

We were thrilled to be the chorus for The Fields of Sorrow in the London Sinfonietta’s brilliant Queen Elizabeth Hall tribute to Harrison Birtwistle, conducted by Martyn Brabbins (5 March 2023), along with instrumentalists from the Royal Academy of Music Manson Ensemble - and delighted by the critics’ responses to the piece.

"On occasions like this, one always wants to hear more pieces than a single concert can contain... There was room however for one of Birtwistle’s most beautiful scores, The Fields of Sorrow, a setting of a brief Latin text by Ausonius for two sopranos (Abigail Sinclair and Lisa Dafydd) and chamber choir (Londinium), with two pianos and the inevitable wind instruments creating fragile, mysterious textures around them. Here, between the more strident pieces, were a few minutes of perfect tranquillity."
(Andrew Clements, The Guardian)
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“All this was played with edge-of-the-seat electric energy by the Sinfonietta and Royal Academy of Music Manson Ensemble. But the heart of the evening for me was Fields of Sorrow from 1972, an evocation of that twilight realm where the Shades live in sad, aqueous sounds of vibraphone, piano and low clarinets, while the excellent Londinium choir and sopranos Abigail Sinclair and Lisa Dafydd intoned the ancient Latin text with just the right feeling of tender desolation. It was a reminder that when not bending our ears, Birtwistle can also touch our hearts.”
(Ivan Hewitt, The Daily Telegraph)
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"The concert also displayed Birtwistle's variety. Where Verses was all pointy chunks, The Fields of Sorrow of 1971, featuring the sopranos Abigail Sinclair and Lisa Dafydd and the choir Londinium suspended us for nine minutes in a whispering haze. The precise words of the 4th-century poet Ausonius got lost in the process, but spellbinding beauty remained."
(Geoff Brown, The Times)
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"From the ritualistic to the reflective, The Fields of Sorrow gives us Birtwistle the hypnotist. In this short piece the shimmering poise of the solo sopranos surmounted the rich texture of expressive choral writing. It was evident that Londinium had been well-prepared by its director, Andrew Griffiths; as a non-professional choir they were more than equal to the composer’s uncompromising demands."
(Christopher Woodley, Bachtrack)
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