If Music be the Food of Love, Curse Me

Do you find there’s something about love that’s always tinged with sadness? Blame Venus, the bereaved goddess who cursed love so that it would forever be mixed with longing. This concert with tenor Ian Bostridge tells a tale of tainted love through English music from across the ages.

Composed for the court of King Charles II, a suite from John Blow’s 17th-century opera Venus and Adonis explores Venus’ story with a distinctly English ambience.

From 250 years later, Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings opens and closes with haunting horn solos. It sets poems by William Blake, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, John Keats and others to music.

Bostridge takes us on a journey through the night from the calm to the sinister, including Blake’s sombre reflection on love and death, The Sick Rose.

Our Principal Keyboard, Steven Devine, directs this concert. Meanwhile our Principal Horn, Roger Montgomery, plays the haunting solo horn parts in Britten’s Serenade.