Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Simpson’s new occult-obsessed oratorio, with Melanie Challenger’s libretto about the founder of the Society of Psychical Research, asks the existential question: is anybody there?
Mark Simpson says he composed the music for The Immortal, a blazingly original 40-minute oratorio steeped in the world of Victorian occultism, in a form of trance. If the purpose of art is to pose existential questions, then the piece, commissioned by the Manchester International festival and performed by the BBC Philharmonic, Manchester Chamber Choir and Exaudi, is concerned with what might be the most fundamental question of all: is anybody there?
Related: Q&A: composer Mark Simpson
Continue reading...