Two World premières of works by Thérèse Brenet

Two works by Thérèse Brenet will be premièred in the next few days.

Miss Brenet's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra "Seul tes yeux demeurèrent..." will be premièred at the Musicarama Festival in Hong Kong at the Tsuen Wan Town Hall Auditorium,
Hong Kong, China on October 24, 2009 by Ho Hong-ying, violin, The , City
Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong, under the direction of Jean
Thorel, a long-time champion of Brenet's music.

This concerto was inspired by the poem by Edgar Allan Poe, To Helen (1848), a memory of an ephemeral object of love

I saw thee once- once only- years ago:

whose intensity and cosmic references have rendered un forgettable:

All- all expired save thee- save less than thou:
Save only the divine light in thine eyes-
Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.
I saw but them- they were the world to me!
I saw but them- saw only them for hours,
Saw only them until the moon went down.


The work is divided classically into three movements :

I. The pearly lustre of the moon went out:
II. Only thine eyes remained. They fill my soul with beauty.
III. How fathomless a capacity for love!

Then, on October 30, 2009: Brenet's Des roses de Paestum à la rose des vents
de Dougga for guitar will be premièred by Marco del Greco, Guitar, “Eviva la Chitarra”
organised by Donne
in Musica at the Scuderie Aldobrandini, Frascati, Italy. The work will then be performed several more times in Rome during the month of November.

This four minute work for guitar solo was inspired by the juxtoposition of images of the famous Rose Gardens in Paestum Italy and the "Rose des vents" in Dougga, Tunisia, which suggested an interplay of perfumes and winds across the Mediterranean Sea. The work was written specially for this series of concerts in celebration of Donne in Musica's Jamila project, involving women in music around the Méditerranean bassin countries.

More information about these works is available on Miss Brenet's page on our site, as well as in our guitar music catalog and our string music catalog.