Listen to Dance, Forever the Dance (Dance of Joy): The Offical Edward Gregson Web Site

Listen: Dance, Forever the Dance (Dance of Joy)

This work was commissioned by the Hertfordshire Chorus with funds provided by the Foundation for Sport and the Arts, Eastern Arts Board and the Holst Foundation. It was given its first performance in St Albans Cathedral in 1999 by the Hertfordshire Chorus, Gillian Moore (mezzo-soprano), and the Guildhall Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Kibblewhite. The London premiere took place in 2004 at the Royal Festival Hall with the Bach Choir, Anna Burford (tonight's soloist), and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Hill.

The Dance, forever the Dance is a large-scale work for mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra, lasting some thirty minutes. It is in four movements, mirroring the structure of traditional symphonic form - in fact it could be described as a symphony for voices and orchestra. The majesty and vigour of the first movement (Dance of Joy) is complimented by the lyrical restraint of the second (Dance of Love), whilst the third (Dance of Death) is both sinister and sensual and parodies a Viennese waltz rather in the manner of Ravel's La Valse. The final movement (Dance of Life) banishes the darkness of the previous movement with extrovert exuberance, winding its way via highly rhythmically-charged rhetoric and Tippett-like contrapuntal passages, to 'bluesy' seductiveness; but the work ends in a blaze of life-affirming colour. The mezzo-soprano soloist has a prominent role in the second and fourth movements.

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