Opera and Oratorio

The story has it that Handel’s main reason for developing the oratorio further was the fact that the popularity of his operas was starting to wane, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to find producers willing to put up the money. An oratorio was a great deal easier to finance…

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Robert Graves reading his poems

  It is always fascinating to hear a poet read his own work. Particularly when you have been spending some considerable time using it; putting it in context; setting it to music. By the time you have finished working with it, what you unconsciously respond to in that poem has affected its shape, its feel, […]

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BRSLI Talk on Oratorio on October 22nd.

The Cool Web is an oratorio based on the poems Robert Graves wrote at the front as a young officer. As such, it offers a moving glimpse of a poet struggling to write about an unbearable experience as it happened. In this talk Sue Curtis, the compiler, talks about the poems she and Jools Scott […]

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