Sometimes we think we know everything there is about a major musical figure, but the information we’re given usually comes from just a handful of standard sources. At the Parlour we’re interested in the other view points. If you really want to know what a composer was like, ask his ex-wife/land lord/ housekeeper!
It’s not enough to read biographies or musicological analysis, you have to sift through letters, bills, novels, newspapers and gaze into the background of portraits to find the key people in the stories. You need to investigate like a sleuth - whose are those initials that keep appearing or what is that code for?
Art Song is the most intimate chamber music genre. Composers bring their most personal thoughts, passions and neurosis to their songs and it is really interesting to excavate the meaning behind them based on what was going on in their lives at the time. It gives you a whole new appreciation of the music at a human level.
Following on from Wagner in Paris, we have the next two instalments of our “Paris Trilogy”. First we unpack Liszt through the eyes of his biographer Lina Ramann and then Chopin from the view of his lover George Sand. Both of these men are better known for their piano works but they also wrote songs which we think will surprise the audience. Our shows are hybrid performance, it’s a combination of song recital and semi staged play. Singers and pianist form the Parlour’s core but we also have writers, directors and actors. We want to tell these stories and we guarantee you’ll want to hear them!