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Distinguished poets who hand over their words for musical setting are few. Even fewer are those who show an awareness of music's demands. On both counts James Fenton is one of the few, and we can only lament that no composer has profited from his love of opera (he did write a libretto for Thomas Adès, who apparently developed cold feet about its subject, religious sects). But Fenton has enjoyed a long professional friendship with Dominic Muldowney, the latest flowering of which is Tsunami, an RPS Elgar Bursary commission designed to "push back musical boundaries but not at the expense of accessibility and integrity".
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© The Financial Times Ltd.
