Commissioned by Channel Four Television Corporation (Channel Four) and first broadcast on 25 December 2005.

  • 0.0.1(bcl).ssx.0/0010/perc/pf/str(1.1.0.2.1)
  • 2 Sopranos, 2 Tenors, Baritone, 2 Basses
  • 50 min
  • Judith Weir
  • English

Programme Note

High-powered newsreader and journalist Armida is becoming increasingly exhausted with her job. Successful army man Rinaldo is also having doubts about his vocation. Can both of them find a sense of fulfilment in the middle of a warzone?

Scores

Vocal score

Reviews

Weir has taken Tasso’s peace-loving soldier-hero Rinaldo and transplanted him to a country that looks like Iraq but is never named as such. Armida the enchantress that Rinaldo falls in love with becomes a war reporter, her sidekick a weather-girl. With only 10 players (The Continuum Ensemble) Weir slides a jazz-influenced theme for saxophone and trombone through an elegant, edgy mesh of Schubertian strings. Odd spots of light are picked out on a piano, while the occupying forces in Not-Iraq offer blog-arias bemoaning their sense of alienation and boredom, and Rinaldo and Armida philosophise on love and war. Weir’s music is as ever confident, soulful and distinctive…
Independent on Sunday
1st January 2006