The ensemble Psappha are indefatigable champions of new music and, true to form, the programme they brought to the Cheltenham festival consisted entirely of premieres. Three of the four works were being heard for the first time anywhere: commissions shared between the festival and Wild Plum Arts, which was created to support new music and its performance. One of Wild Plum’s founders, the tenor Christopher Gillett, acted as compere for the concert.
The most substantial work was Conor Mitchell’s Look Both Ways, setting extracts from the exchanges of letters between Benjamin Britten and his partner Peter Pears from the 1940s, when the tenor was often on tour while Britten stayed in Aldeburgh composing. With tenor and baritone soloists – the excellent Ed Lyon and James Cleverton – supported by a piano trio, Mitchell’s touching, clever song cycle is careful to underline the difference in tone between the two correspondents.
