Silent awakening

The renowned duo of Martha Guth and Erika Switzer have given many recitals together around the US and Europe. Their programme sets a selection of Schubert songs alongside contemporary works including the recently commissioned Love, Loss, and Exile by Juhi Bansal. The overarching theme of the concert features stories of isolation and separation from Homer’s Penelope to Amaker’s poem commemorating the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Bansal draws texts for her powerful work for voice, cello and piano from the Pashtun Landay, an oral tradition from Afghanistan featuring short poetic couplets, passed down by women and often anonymous. The recital concludes with Schubert’s ‘Lob der Tränen’, in which Schlegel exhorts longing and tears as the mechanism of love’s transformation.