John La Farge

Mirages: The Light and Life of John La Farge through Music.
Charlotte de Rothschild – soprano, Adrian Farmer - piano

The inspiration for this programme comes from the diffused light that filters through John La Farge's many works of art - be they stained glass windows, or paintings. In a passage from his book Reminiscences of the South Seas, written in 1890 at the start of his voyage to the Pacific Islands, he wrote; "When I went to bed, blue light poured in by reflection from the waves that had looked dark and colourless from the deck. It was the same contrast as by daylight, when the dark sea, isolated from the sky, takes a blue like Oriental satin, and is fired with light. Tonight again the moon gave a play – no longer in the great pomp of a simple spread of silver forms of cloud, but like an opera of colour and shadow…"

In this recital I hope to mirror some of his imaginings that took form throughout his career, inspired by his use of colour, of form and of spirituality. I will not attempt to follow his life in a chronological order but rather tie the music in with some of the people he met, with themes of some of his best-loved work, and their images. Music in itself has a certain innate fluidity, an ephemeral mellifluousness, a mirage that has one reaching out to try to grasp, like the myriad colours cast by a dappled ray of sunlight streaming through a church window...