Venue: Abbeystrewry Church, Skibbereen
Date: Friday 18 September 2026, 8pm
Tickets: FREE
The Mizen Trio, our local heros will present a varied programme of music, interspersed with poetry and readings.
Susan Nares - piano and flute, Nora Killeen - violin, Diana Llewellyn - cello, and Friends.
Due to unfortunate circumstances the Mizen trio is unable to perform their planned programme, which will now happen next season. However, we are delighted that Dianna Llewellyn and Susan Nares will perform a beautiful and varied programme that aims to move the heart. The music selections will be interwoven with prose and verse read by Pat Bracken and Joan Giller.
FROM THE HEART
Music and words for an autumn evening
Reading - Carmen by Théophile Gautier
‘Prelude’ from Espagna opus 165 no.1 by Issac Albéniz (1860 -1909) and Habanera from the opera ‘Carmen’ (1874), by Georges Bizet (1838-1875)
The Habanera is the famous entrance aria of the Carmen in Act I of Bizet’s opera, written in 1875. Carmen, who is portrayed as a fiery gypsy, emerges from a cigarette factory and taunts the surrounding soldiers and crowd, warning them never to fall in love with her, while simultaneously making them all fall in love with her.” She sings about love's wild and untameable nature, warning listeners that love obeys no rules and will slip away whenever it is cornered.
Reading - Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas (extract)
Traumerei (Dreaming) from Kinderszenen Op.15 No.7 by Robert Schumann (1810-1856), arranged for cello and piano by Friederich Grützmacher
Robert Schumann told his future wife that Kinderszenen (Childhood Scenes) was inspired by her comment that he sometimes seemed like a child to her, and so the music is about adults remembering childhood. Schumann’s music creates a slow, floating, and dreamy mood that evokes childhood daydreams.
Reading -Good-Night by Paul Laurence Dunbar (extract)
Berceuse for Jocelyn from the opera ‘Jocelyn’ Op.100 by Benjamin Godard (1849-1895)
Benjamin Godard’s 1888 opera, Jocelyn, was inspired by a romantic novel of the same name by Alphonse de Lamartine that tells the story of a young priest who falls in love with a beautiful young girl. This piece, the Berceuse (commonly known in English as “Angels Guard Thee”) is sung in the opera by the priest in exile, watching over his sleeping companion (who at the time is disguised as a man), hidden away from the chaos of the world.
Reading - Where everything is music by Rumi
Morceau de Concours (1898) by Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
This piece by Gabriel Faure was composed as a sight-reading test for students of flute and piano at the Paris Conservatoire in 1898. The manuscript, which was lost, was rediscovered in 1970. It’s lyric beauty has made it a firm favourite ever since.
Reading - Extract From Thomas Hardy: The Mayor of Casterbridge
Bourrée opus 24 by William Henry Squire (1871-1963)
William Henry Squire completed the following Bourrée for cello in1901. It is written in the style of a gavotte, which is an old French courtly dance, but it also has a more modern fiery, exuberant twist to it.
Reading - Poem by Silva Kaputikyan
Toccata by Aram Khatchaturian (1903-1978)
The Toccata in E flat was written in 1932 as part of a three movement suite for piano but this first movement soon became a popular solo piece - for advanced performers, as you will see!! Khachaturian was born into an Armenian family in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia and is considered to be a leading composer of the former Soviet Union. The piece draws on Armenian folk melodies and mimics the explosive, driving patterns of the dhol (a traditional Armenian drum)
Reading - Everyone sang by Siegfried Sassoon
Song of the Birds by Traditional Catalan arranged by Pablo Casals
This arrangement of Song of the Birds (El cant dels ocells) carries deep gravity, served historically as an anthem for exile, freedom, and universal peace. Casals was a man of peace who spent most of his life in exile from Spain, leaving after the end of the Spanish Civil War when Franco took power. his last performance etc.
reading - Alberto Rodríguez Muñoz
Milonga del Angel (1965) By Astor Piazzola (1921-1992)
This tango, was originally written for a 1962 play by an Argentinian playwright, Alberto Rodríguez Muñoz, about an angel who descends into a rough Buenos Aires neighbourhood to heal broken human souls. A Milonga is an event where the Argentinian tango is danced.
Reading - How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43) Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Ich Liebe DIch from Melodies of the heart Op.5 by Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
Edvard Grieg’s famous song "Ich Liebe dich" ("I love you"), was written in 1864 and is based on a romantic poem written by Hans Christian Andersen. The verse that inspired Grieg’s melody goes (in English translation):
“You alone have become the thought of my thought,
You are my heart's first love.
I love as like no one else on Earth,
I love you for all time and eternity.”
Encore
The Swan from ‘Carnival of the Animals’ (1886) by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)