Le Palais de la Mort

 Last June 14th, took place the world premiere of Ian Pace composition Le Palais de la Mort:

City Pierrot Ensemble
Concert 14 June 2021, City Summer Sounds Festival
City, University of London

Nancy Ruffer, flute
David Campbell, clarinet
Emma Arden, percussion
Ian Pace, piano
Ben Smith, electric organ
Madeleine Mitchell, violin
Bridget Carey, viola
Joseph Spooner, cello

Georgia Mae Bishop, voice

Among other pieces, the concert included the world premiere of 

Ian Pace, Matière: Le Palais de la mort (2021) [World Premiere]

1. A very untidy state

2. Cannot go

3. Cold, selfish, animal and inferior

4. And pleasures banish pain

5. Le Palais de la mort

This piece began to form in my mind at the time of a visit to Haworth Parsonage in summer 2019, looking around the house and in particular the square piano in one of the front rooms, and collections of music owned by Emily and Anne Brontë in particular. After reading further about the musical dimensions to the Brontë family, I began to form fantasies in my mind of a certain bombastic playing on the part of Emily (the most talented pianist of the siblings), incorporating some of the (then) popular pieces which she and Anne had in her collection, and developed an interest in creating a work of music which would be unquestionably from the present day, but incorporated aspects of the music which would have been heard in the Brontë household. (...)

Check the programme notes of the concert here or a more detailed account by the composer himself, here.

The concert was live-streamed on YouTube. Le Palais de la Mort can be listened some 36 minutes into the concert.