<<  -- 7 --  Roderic Dunnett    A COUNTERTENOR VIRTUOSO

'I've sung a bit of contemporary music, though to be honest the opportunity hasn't come my way often. I've sung some music, some really good stuff, by [the baritone] Roderick Williams, a very good friend, who was a choral scholar at Magdalen when I was a chorister. I was down to do a Prom, the Giles Swayne piece Havoc, a couple of years ago; in our recent Wigmore Hall concert Liz and I did a newly commissioned piece by Rachel Stott, using Gabriel Woolf as the narrator to read some of Thomas Campion's poetry : what we were aiming for was a sort of Masque sequence, with a contemporary piece that actually incorporated a piece by Campion.

'And there are those pieces for countertenor by Geoffrey Burgon which are absolutely great. One of my dreams is there's a fantastic duet that James recorded with Charles Brett and the City of London Sinfonia, probably 10-15 [in fact 25] years ago [presumably Canciones de Alma, words by St John of the Cross, for two altos and thirteen strings, recorded with This Ean Night on EMI CDM 566527 2].

'It's not the kind of thing that springs to mind among orchestral programmers, you can just imagine -- "two countertenors and an orchestra -- what on earth else do we put with it?". But the pair recorded it, and James once played me that piece and I thought it was simply fabulous : it was beautifully sung, and incredibly well written for countertenors : I think someone like Geoffrey Burgon somehow really manages to understand the qualities of the countenor voice. Anyway, if anyone who plans orchestral programmes reads this, I'd love to do a concert with James where we did this piece. So if anyone comes up with an opportunity ... !'