BBC Philharmonic & Guy Cutting perform ‘Black Shuck Lament’
My Black Shuck Lament will be performed by tenor Guy Cutting and the strings of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra directed by Zoë Beyers, at the Royal Northern College of Music on 16 October, at a concert called ‘British Iconoclasts‘, also featuring music by Byrd, Britten, Errollyn Wallen, Edmund Finnis and Michael Tippett.
It was first performed by Allan Clayton and the Dunedin Consort at Aldeburgh Festival last year:
Black Shuck Lament uses two texts, cut up, re-ordered, and intermingled: firstly, a poem by me made from fragments of the Book of Lamentations – anguished in tone but largely without the religious context. Secondly, extracts from contemporary accounts of ‘black shuck’, a demonic black dog that seems to have roamed East Anglia from around the 12th century, terrorising locals at best and killing them at worst.
The tone is largely dark and desolate. There is clock-like ticking in plucked strings for large portions of the piece, though it is a tired clock that keeps winding down, before regaining its tempo.
Black Shuck’s claws are said to be visible on the door of the church in Blythburgh, the venue for the piece’s premiere.
I was Composer-in-Association with the BBC Philharmonic between 2021 and 2025.