Evening Safari – St James’ Cathedral – Townsville

Ruth features on concert harp in Claude Debussy’s Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp, L.137
alongside Sally Walker (flute) and Jennifer Stumm (viola). In this work Debussy looked back far beyond the impressionism of his earlier works to the emotional reserve and textural clarity of the music of the French baroque. It is one of Debussy’s most uncompromisingly modern creations, about which the composer said “The music is so terribly melancholy,” he wrote to his friend the Swiss journalist Robert Godet, “that I can’t say whether one should laugh or cry. Perhaps both at the same time?”