Listen & Watch

Martin Suckling: Candlebird

AUDIO
6 January 2012

London Sinfonietta Music Streams: complete recordings from live performances exclusively for listening to online.

Martin Suckling Candlebird

Leigh Melrose baritone
Nicholas Collon conductor
London Sinfonietta

Candlebird is a London Sinfonietta commission generously supported by the London Sinfonietta Pioneers

This recording features the world premiere performance of Candlebird, recorded live at Southbank Centre on Sunday 29 May 2011.

Martin Suckling's music is published by Faber Music Ltd.


The five songs of Candlebird are all settings of texts by Don Paterson. The selection and ordering are my own; four songs are taken from Rain (2009) and the final song is from Paterson’s earlier collection God’s Gift to Women (1997). Quarter tones, folk music, luxurious lines and scurrying fragments are woven into a musical world where, eventually, everyone sings.