Event Details
Following two sold-out runs, Death of Classical returns to the magnificent Crypt under the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, performing a pair of works that explore the resilience of art in response to destruction.
Missy Mazzoli's Dark with Excessive Bright – here performed in its arrangement for string quintet with violin soloist – takes its title from a line in Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, where a blind man attempts to describe his vision of God. In a similarly surreal and evocative manner, Mazzoli's music twists, turns, and transforms, casting and chasing shadows across four centuries of musical expression from the Baroque era through to the present day.
Written in the final days of World War II, Metamorphosen was a deeply personal lament from Richard Strauss, as he mourned the destruction of culture that he saw taking place around him. Heard here in its rarely-performed string septet arrangement, it unfolds as a single, continuous meditation on grief – an elegy for art lost to war.
Performances will take place from 6pm to 8pm and from 7:30pm to 9:30 pm on both Friday and Saturday. A reception will be offered for the first hour in the main space of the Cathedral and the performance will begin one hour after the event's start time in the Crypt.