Photograph: Verdala Palace by Julian Vassallo Artists: Bill Barclay, David Joseph, Carducci String Quartet.
Created and directed by Bill Barclay, Concert Theatre Works
Text by Rainer Maria Rilke & Franz Xavier Kappus
Translated by Damion Searls
Music by Ravel & Debussy Synopsis
A theatrical chamber music production. Rainer Maria Rilke’s famous letters to aspiring poet Franz Kappus are a clarion call to artists everywhere. Maurice Ravel’s single, masterful string quartet was written in the same year, in the same city, and at the same moment in his life. As if that weren’t enough, the lost letters of ‘the young poet,’ Franz Kappus, were discovered in a groundbreaking literary discovery in 2020, allowing us to read this famous correspondence for the first time. Rounding out these mirrored mentors is Debussy’s single string quartet, mirroring Ravel’s in the way that Rilke mirrors the young poet. In a new groundbreaking work of concert-theatre, Bill Barclay has dramatically presented this friendship for the very first time, fully staged with string quartet and projections, and showcasing what life requires of us to be truly alive.
Both born in 1875, Ravel and Rilke wrote their iconic works at the age of 28 in Paris in the same months and just a few streets away. These twinned masterpieces reflect each other in time and space, forecasting the future of romanticism as modernist thought took over Paris. Debussy composed his only string quartet just ten years earlier, also at the same stage of life (30 years old). His influence on Ravel, who structured his quartet in identical ways, is obvious hearing the works back-to-back. Their musical conversation naturally mirrors the mentorship between the poets. Debussy is 10 years older than Ravel, while Kappus is 10 years younger than Rilke. The meditation between these four minds is a pocket kaleidoscope of belle epoch Paris – the white-hot fulcrum between romanticism and modernism.
THE VENUE (Adapted from the President’s website)
Verdala Palace, today the summer residence of the President of Malta, was built in 1586 as a countryside retreat for Grand Master Hugues Loubenx de Verdalle. Designed by Maltese architect Gerolamo Cassar and influenced by contemporary French château architecture, its distinctive square plan and four corner towers give the palace an imposing, fortress-like character. A third storey and surrounding service buildings were added under Grand Master António Manuel de Vilhena in the 18th century. The palace is particularly distinguished by its important artistic heritage. Its principal treasure is the magnificent decorative scheme of the barrel-vaulted main hall, painted by Verdalle’s Tuscan court painter, Filippo Paladini (1544–1614). Episodes from the life of Grand Master Verdalle occupy each end of the hall, while allegorical figures enrich the individual ceiling bays, transforming the room into an elaborate celebration of the Grand Master and his achievements. Contemporary accounts also describe the palace’s interiors as sumptuously furnished with silks and precious objects. Appropriately, an inscription above the main hall entrance, cedant curae loco, invites visitors to surrender their cares to the pleasures of the place. Another artistic highlight is the chapel dedicated to St Anthony the Abbot, extensively patronised by Grand Master Nicolás Cotoner. Its titular painting is by Mattia Preti, one of the foremost Baroque artists active in Malta, and dates from the 1660s, when he was also creating the celebrated vault paintings of St John’s Conventual Church. After periods of decline and restoration, Verdala became an official presidential residence in 1974. Its architecture, Paladini decorations and Preti altarpiece preserve an exceptional artistic legacy associated with the Order of St John.
Programme
Claude Debussy String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 (L.91)
Maurice Ravel String Quartet in F major, M.35.
Programme Note
Both born 150 years ago in 1875, Rainer Maria Rilke and Maurice Ravel bridge the romantic and modernist worlds like few others. At the height of Belle Époque Paris with its world fairs, its famous nexus of mould-breaking artists and its nascent globalism, these two visionaries began their masterpieces in the exact same months, just miles apart, in 1903. Ravel’s single string quartet and Rilke’s correspondence with aspiring poet Franz Kappus are watermarks of true greatness. They were each, astonishingly, only 28 years old.
I created this project after an acquaintance put Rilke’s book into my hands during the pandemic. She wanted me to have it, revealing the stack of copies of the same book in the corner. I protested: I already possess and cherish it. NO, she said, look at the cover. What had I missed? A new edition that includes the letters from the young poet? I was aghast - I had not heard the news of the discovery - and I read it immediately. Some 115 years after they were written, Franz Kappus’ letters to Rilke were discovered in 2020 in the Rilke archive near Stuttgart. The man who had astonishingly written some 14,000 letters of his own (that’s more than one per day of his entire adult life), had safely retained Kappus’s fanmail as he arduously traversed Europe, seeking better health and peace. How deeply touching. This literary discovery was smothered in Covid news, which is why it is likely news to you, dear reader.
As I read the whole correspondence for the first time, Rilke’s famous advice became a dialogue. I simply had to adapt this material somehow. For those of you who treasure Rilke’s letters, as I do, there is a vital ingredient that makes them work - space. One does not read this book cover to cover in a single sitting. In performance, something must stand in for this space to allow his wisdom time to find its home in the body. To know Rilke is to tattoo a phrase of his somewhere you can read it. Similar fervor follows Ravel: a friend remarked to me last month that he found life without Ravel “unimaginable.”
To know him is to feel his eglantine roots gently wrapped around your heart. It was hardly a surprise to discover that they are precise contemporaries. Their anniversaries are this year, 2025, (alongside Carl Jung, Thomas Mann, and Fritz Kreisler). So what could these two twinned geniuses tell us about our modern minds - and our metastasizing neuroses - today?
The new addition of Kappus’ psychology begged a musical response to balance the family photo. Debussy also wrote only a single quartet, and it too is a masterpiece in the repertoire. His mentorship of Ravel is obvious on a first listen of the two quartets together (most easily heard in the two pizzicato movements). Debussy was 13 years older than Ravel, while Rilke was 8 years older than Kappus. And so this new production was born - four artists, in the vigor of their visionary youth, drawn out by two fraternal mentorships. These four artists are embodied in the form of the string quartet itself. But although this performance may speak to the grand emergence of fin de siècle modernism catalyzed by its titanic artists, we strive to present an idiosyncratic snapshot here: one that in its intimate particulars reveals the deeply personal.This is to say, if you adhere closely, dear solitary poet, it will reveal YOU.
Bill Barclay
Bill Barclay (Director, Writer, Rainer Maria Rilke) Writer, director, and composer Bill Barclay is best known for his 25+ productions of concert-theatre including Secret Byrd, Death of Gesualdo, Peer Gynt, The Chevalier, Bach’s Art of Fugue, and his major adaptations for actors and orchestra Romeo & Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Antony & Cleopatra, and many more. He is artistic director of Concert Theatre Works which tours his productions to 30 cities internationally each year. As Director of Music at Shakespeare’s Globe, he produced live music for over 130 productions and 100 concerts, composing original music for over a dozen which have toured to six continents. His Broadway and West End credits include Farinelli & The King, Twelfth Night, and Richard III, all starring Sir Mark Rylance.
Barclay’s original works have been described as “witty and incisive” (NY Times) “emotionally supercharged” (The Times, London), “quietly transfixing” (New Yorker), “effortless perfection” (The Observer) and “quite simply exquisite” (The Guardian). Orchestral partners include The LA Philharmonic (at The Hollywood Bowl), National Symphony Orchestra (Kennedy Center), BBC Symphony Orchestra (Barbican), London Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, New World Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, symphonies in Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St Louis, New Jersey, Virginia, Colorado, Indiana, Hartford, Harlem, Winston-Salem, Chautauqua.
He has been commissioned five times by The Boston Symphony Orchestra, staging his own original adaptations over 12 seasons between Boston and The Tanglewood Music Center, collaborating with Andris Nelsons, Charles Dutoit, Ken-David Masur, Hans Graf, and many others. An early music specialist, his productions have variously featured The Gesualdo Six, Music of the Baroque, The English Concert, The Sixteen, Handel & Haydn Society, Fretwork, Academy of Ancient Music, Dunedin Consort, Barokksolistene, Orchestra for the Age of Enlightenment, St Martin-in-the-Fields, National Centre for Early Music, Oregon Bach Festival, Early Music Seattle, Portland Baroque, San Francisco Early Music Society, Abendmusik and others, at dozens of festivals around the world.
David Joseph
Actor and classically trained tenor David Joseph has been touring as Franz Kappus in Letters to a Young Poet, and W.A. Mozart with Concert Theatre Works’ production of The Chevalier for the past five years, performing with The London Philharmonic, Music of the Baroque, Cleveland Philharmonic, Aldeburgh Festival, and many others. David has performed twice with The Boston Symphony Orchestra as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet and Mozart in The Chevalier. He is a fifteen season veteran of Shakespeare & Company roles include James in Time Stands Still (nominated for Best Leading Actor Award), Mr Darcy in Christmas at Pemberley and Pride and Prejudice, George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Elyot in Private Lives, Dorante in The Liar, Sebastian in The Tempest, Clown 2 (12 Characters) in The 39 Steps. Joseph earned a Best Leading Actor nomination for playing Charlie Chaplin in the world premier of The Consul, The Tramp and America's Sweetheart at Old Castle Theatre. Other recent roles include: George in WORD PLAY at Playwrights Horizons, (NYC), Johnny in Hotel California (NYC), Coleman in I Married The Icepick Killer at Stella Adler Theatre (NYC). Feature films include: Penny Land (Manhattan Film Festival) and Damsel by Douglas Burgdorf (Spain International Film Festival).
Concert Theatre Works
Concert Theatre Works is an international nonprofit, registered in Massachusetts, that builds new audiences for classical music by bringing story to the symphony. With over 20 original productions created by its founder and Artistic Director, Bill Barclay, CTW demonstrates the vital relevance of live music in an increasingly digital age. CTW tours to roughly 25 cities per year, collaborating with the world’s finest ensembles at the vanguard of innovation in concert culture. Productions include Secret Byrd, The Chevalier, Peer Gynt, Markus Passion, Apollo Resurrected, Romeo & Juliet, Antony & Cleopatra, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and What Music Is. Venue partners include The Hollywood Bowl, The Kennedy Center, Tanglewood, and The Royal Albert Hall. Collaborators include the world’s finest orchestras and early music ensembles.