Work Information
| A co-commission celebrating the tenth anniversary of JAM (The John Armitage Memorial Trust) and the fortieth anniversary of VocalEssence. |
| Publisher |
Novello & Co Ltd |
Category |
Chorus and Orchestra/Ensemble |
| Year Composed |
2010 |
Duration |
16 Minutes |
| Chorus |
SATB |
Orchestration |
hn.2tpt.tbn.tba/org |
| Languages |
English |
Availability |
Hire Explain this... |
Programme Note
First performance: 25 March 2010, St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, London; BBC Singers; Stephen Disley, organ; Onyx Brass; Nicholas Cleobury, conductorThe Night’s Untruth explores the use of sleep as metaphor by dint of excerpts from poems written in the 17th to 20th centuries. Death, love, fear, ecstasy, isolation, dreaming and rest are all textual “variations” on the “theme” of sleep and can be found in the chosen texts. The work’s title is taken from a line in a poem by Samuel Daniel (1562-1619) and speaks to the composition’s focus on sleep as a parallel, possibly dystopian, existence to the one experienced in our waking hours. Tarik O’Regan March 2010
Reviews
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'O'Regan is a master at setting text'
William Randall Beard, Star Tribune, 16/04/2012
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...intensely atmospheric....
Alan Cooper, The Herald (Glasgow), 02/11/2010
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…an inspiring work, exploring sonorous and theatrical potential of the choir and brass, with only modest contributions from the organ. …[it] reflects how, in writing this piece in Princeton, O’Regan has found his voice in America, having imbibed impressions of Copland, for instance, in the melancholy trumpet’s eventide yearning to the wide-open prairies, while inflecting a European sensibility in the choral writing – a shifting, fluid sound-world of suspensions and unresolving harmonies.
Jonathan Lennie, Choir & Organ, 01/07/2010
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The most impressive [new work] was Tarik O'Regan's The Night's Untruth, with standout soloists from the BBC Singers and organist Stephen Disley adding to the rich, complex textures that maximised the potential of the musical material. In this setting of extracts from poems dealing with sleep by Keats, Shakespeare, Samuel Daniel and Hart Crane, O'Regan's technical skills are superb, and the result has a directness that is perfectly matched by the subtlety of its means.
George Hall, Guardian, 31/03/2010
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