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Press & Public Response "The music comes from the heart with integrity and a technical assurance that firms up what might otherwise be benign lyricism into something of stature and beauty. Above all, it was obviously good to sing and play, with enough challenge in the writing to keep it within the capacity and interest of young amateurs. There’s a crying need for this kind of music and not enough composers and consequence around who seem willing or able to meet it."Michael White, Independent on Sunday, 24/3/96 "Mirror of Perfection is musically taut, well-structured and beautifully scored.
The Passacaglia is worth of Britten and the harmonic structures in Canticle of Peace are
most ingenious. Above all, Richard Blackford has composed a new work that is direct from
the heart and speaks to the inner soul of music" "Clothing his amatory hymn in a radiance in strings, harp and three horns,
Blackford went on to set poems showing the Saint as love-obsessed. In movement six, a
deftly woven passacaglia ‘amore’ appeared no fewer than forty-eight times. After
such excess, a Canticle of Peace formed a suitably restful ending to this carefully
written and enjoyable cantata". "I went away quite stunned and overwhelmed by the beauty of it. It should become a
standard piece for choral societys up and down the country" |
