Love is a Spectrum

Sunday 29 June, 3.00pm

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Neil Balfour

Neil Balfour, baritone; Christopher Pulleyn, piano

Gabriel Fauré: Cinq melodies ‘de Venise’
Manuel de Falla: Siete canciones populares españolas
Reena Esmail: Rosa de Sal
Robert Schumann: Frauenliebe und Leben

Award-winning Indian-Scottish baritone Neil Balfour describes the programme as ‘An intimate look at love and how it can feel so unique for different people, cultures, genders, sexualities and neurodivergences’. Works from French, Spanish and German song cycles will range from Fauré and Falla from the early twentieth century, to contemporary Indian-American composer Reena Esmail, whose work crosses cultural boundaries. The programme is completed by Robert Schumann’s 1840 Frauenliebe und Leben – A Woman’s Love and Life, written from a woman’s point of view of her love and marriage, and beyond her husband’s death.

Christopher Pulleyn replaces Sholto Kynoch, originally billed in our 2025 brochure, who has had to withdraw from this event.

Venue: Thaxted United Reformed Church
Tickets: £22 unreserved seating. Age 30 and under: £10; age 18 and under: £5.

“[The Tippett Quartet] concert as part of the 2023 Thaxted Festival revealed a group of musicians of profound interpretative depth, and capable of traversing a wide range of repertoire.”
Colin Clarke, Classical Explorer
“A positively life-enhancing performance of Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love in English with reduced ensemble by Wild Arts…”
Colin Clarke, Classical Explorer
“The performance was a joy … and the quartet brought out its sense of both structural and linear perfection.” Holst’s Phantasy Quartet Op 36 performed by the Tippett Quartet.
Colin Clarke, Classical Explorer
“The Tippett Quartet and Emma Abbate have performed Schumann’s Piano Quintet together many times. On this occasion they combined flawless execution with instinctive – and utterly engaging – musicianship.”
Claire Seymour, in Seen and Heard International.
“…this was a wonderfully enjoyable and engaging performance that really punched above its weight. The audience in Thaxted clearly loved it and were fully engaged, whilst this experienced reviewer was carried away as well.”
Wild Art’s production of The Elixir of Love, reviewed by Robert Hugill in Planet Hugill
“2 terrific concerts I heard with London Mozart Players.”
Thaxted Festival concertgoer
“I think Gustav is smiling down to see how his memory and that of his best friend and colleague Ralph Vaughan Williams are honoured by the expertly played pieces they both composed.”
Thaxted Festival concertgoer
“It's always the variety and quality which keeps me coming back.”
Thaxted Festival concertgoer
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