Blackford - Mirror of Perfection, Vision of a Garden
£13.25
In stock - available for despatch within 1 working day
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Label: Lyrita
Cat No: SRCD406
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Vocal/Choral
Release Date: 6th May 2022
Contents
Artists
Elizabeth Watts (soprano)Roderick Williams (baritone)
Stephen Gadd (baritone)
Ikon
Britten Sinfonia
The Bach Choir
Philharmonia Orchestra
Conductor
David HillWorks
Mirror of PerfectionVision of a Garden
Artists
Elizabeth Watts (soprano)Roderick Williams (baritone)
Stephen Gadd (baritone)
Ikon
Britten Sinfonia
The Bach Choir
Philharmonia Orchestra
Conductor
David HillAbout
“In 2020 I spent nearly five months (March to August) in hospital with Covid-19, and was in an intensive care unit for more than half that time. In October, when I went back to the hospital for a checkup, I was given two little booklets called ‘ICU Diaries’ which contained messages of support written by the nurses who looked after me in intensive care. I find it astonishing that these people whom I never knew (and who didn’t know me as a person, but only as a bundle of unpleasant symptoms) could write such warm and personal messages. The text that the choir sings in Vision of a Garden is taken from their words.
“I have plentiful memories from my time in intensive care, but they are almost all false ones: things which my mind invented to keep itself occupied while my body was otherwise engaged in fighting the virus. And, whilst I call them ‘dreams’ for want of a better word, they were much more vivid than ordinary dreams: they engaged all five senses, not just vision and sound.
“In the centre of the Addenbrooke’s Hospital complex in Cambridge there is a little garden (called the Jubilee Garden), which is a lovely oasis of peace amid the hospital bustle. As I now know, I was taken to this garden from the ICU a couple of times in May, to get the benefit of the fresh air and sunshine. I wasn’t consciously aware of this, but my subconscious transplanted the garden to Cape Town and incorporated it into my ‘South African dream’. In July, when I was in the rehab ward, the physiotherapists who were then encouraging me to get used to walking longer distances took me out to the garden, and I immediately recognized it as the same place I had visited in the dream. This was extremely worrying, since as far as I knew I’d never been there before, and I couldn’t believe that my mind had invented something that actually existed. It wasn’t until three months later, when I was given my ICU Diaries, that I learned I had in fact seen the garden in May.”
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