Little Missenden Festival: Albion Refracted

Date: October 5, 2025
Time: 12:00 – 13:15
Location: Little Missenden Village Hall

Joseph Phibbs String Quartet no1
Charlotte Harding Iorsa
Mark-Anthony Turnage Winter’s Edge III
Thomas Adès Arcadiana op12: V L’embarquement
Edmund Finnis String Quartet no1 ‘Aloysius’: IV Hymn (After Byrd)
Ralph Vaughan Williams String Quartet no2 in A minor

‘Albion Refracted’ combines music and words in a programme which takes a contemporary look at our relationship with nature and the English landscape. It’s bookended by works 70 years apart, starting most recently with Joseph Phibbs – a composer with whom the Piattis have a particularly close relationship – and ending with Vaughan Williams, whose name inevitably evokes thoughts of the English countryside.

Interwoven through the music are poems by Alice Oswald, Seamus Heaney and others.

In putting these works together the quartet hope we’ll be inspired to explore a deeper connection to nature, to reflect on the healing possibilities of taking time to observe, and to seek solace in earth’s natural beauty. A perfect opportunity for an hour’s Sunday reflection on nature in all its moods.