Leo Chadburn, Flower Dictionary
Instrumentation
Eight voices SSAATTBB
Duration: 8 minutes | Written: 2024 | Commissioned by The Marian Consort
Programme Note
The Sentiment of Flowers by Robert Tyas was published in 1836 and reprinted many times over the subsequent forty years. Its popularity reflects the Victorian interest in floriography: the “language” of flowers. Tyas's book is an unexpectedly scholarly amalgam of folklore, literature and botany, drawing on sources from East and Southwest Asia and from across Africa.
Flower Dictionary uses the names of thirty plants, together with Tyas's definition of their symbolism. The fragments of text are sequenced to suggest an elliptical narrative (rather than an alphabetical sequence).
The music is transparently simple, with soloists calling and responding to each other, punctuated by silences and occasional moments when the whole ensemble blossoms into a new harmony. My intention is that the individual voices of The Marian Consort are revealed, then contrasted with the sublime unity of their voices sounding together.
Live Performances
- Marian Consort, 14 March 2024, St Georges, Norwich
- Marian Consort, 16 March 2024, St Barnabas, Oxford
- Marian Consort, 24 May 2024, Dunster Festival
- Marian Consort, 7 July 2024, Cheltanham Festival
- Marian Consort, 7 May 2025, Dreifaltigkeitskirche, Speyer
- Marian Consort, 6 July 2025, St Wilfrid's Church, Harrogate
