Songs
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Bubenblumen (2023)
Soprano, piano
Text by Emilie Inniger
I. Flieder [Lilac]
II. Sonnenblume [Sunflower]
III. Eisenhut [Wolfsbane]
IV. Schneeglöckchen [Snowdrop]
Duration: ca. 12 minutes
 

Three Poems of A.E. Housman (2022)
Voice, piano
Poems by A.E. Housman from "A Shropshire Lad"
I. Drowning
II. Offence
III. Nettles
Duration: ca. 8 minutes
Download music
 

Autumn Fires (2022)
Amplified voice, one or two clarinets and oboes ad lib., piano
Poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
Duration: ca. 2 minutes
 

Kernkraft (2022)
Soprano, piano
Text by Emilie Inniger
Duration: ca. 4 minutes
 

From Katherine Mansfield's Diary (2021)
Soprano, piano
Texts by Katherine Mansfield
Duration: ca. 18 minutes
Premiere: Ludlow English Song Weekend, April 2023, with Siân Dicker and Krystal Tunnicliffe
 

L'oiseau (2021)
Mezzo-soprano, piano
Text by Saint John Perse
Duration: ca. 10 minutes
Premiere: Geneva, May 2022, Annina Haug and Edward Rushton
 

Soft, lovely, rose-like lips (2009, rev. 2021)
Mezzo soprano, piano
Text by Barnabe Barnes (1593)
Duration: ca. 4 minutes
 

Nocturne (2021)
Soprano, piano
Text by the composer
Duration: ca. 3 minutes
 

Goethe-Fragment no. 2 (2021)
Voice, violin, cello, piano
Text by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from "Die Leiden des jungen Werther"
Duration: ca. 3 minutes
 

The fair singer (2020)
Soprano, piano
Poem by Andrew Marvell
Duration: ca. 5 minutes
 

Two poems of Emily Dickinson (2020)
Soprano, piano
I. It's all I have
II. Two butterflies
Duration: ca. 7 minutes
Premiere: Winterthur and Zurich, Juni 2021 with Anna Gschwend, soprano and Edward Rushton, piano
Videos of the premiere performance on YouTube:
No. 1 https://youtu.be/F5kUTGVOxGw
No. 2 https://youtu.be/HBKVJSsBgsQ
 

A Song of Autumn (2020)
Medium voice, piano
Poem by Emily Brontë
Duration: 4 minutes
 

That Entheal Strain (2020)
Soprano, piano
Poem by Emily Brontë
Duration: 10 minutes
Premiere: Helferei Zürich, Lena Kiepenheuer and Edward Rushton
 

Auf den Tod der Luise Scheidegger (2019)
Medium voice, violin, piano
Poem by Gottfried Keller (1866)
Duration: 6 minutes
Premiere: 15th November 2019 in Herzogenbuchsee
 

A sonnet of Keats (2018)
Medium voice, piano
Poem by John Keats ("Bright star")
Duration: 3 minutes
 

Trois sonnets de Tristan Corbière (2014/2018)
Soprano, piano
1. Sonnet de nuit
2. À une demoiselle
3. Litanie
Duration: ca. 11 minutes
 

Am Ende des Flurs, 4. Stock (2017)
Tenor, piano
Poem by Christian Haller
Commissioned by Tino Brütsch
Duration: ca. 6 minutes
 

Das weisse Blatt Papier (2017)
Medium voice, piano
also version for voice, piano, flute and cello
Poem by Tschang-Tsi, trans. Hans Bethge
Duration: ca. 3 minutes
 

Zwei Herbstsonette (2017)
Medium voice and piano
Poems by Stefan Zweig
1. Herbstsonett
2. Alpenglühen am Zürichsee
Duration: ca. 7 minutes
 

The Just Form (2015)
Three songs for soprano and piano
Poems by Sophia de Mello Bryner Andresen, translated by Colin Rorrison
Commissioned by Leeds Lieder
Duration: c. 10 minutes
First performance: April 2016 by Christina Gansch and Christopher Glynn
 

Ein Lied (2015)
Baritone, piano
Texts by Plato, Heinrich Heine and Franz Schubert
Commissioned by the 2015 Leamington Festival
First performance: 4th May 2015 by Simon Wallfisch and Edward Rushton
Duration: 8 minutes

 

Geist und Wurst (2015)
A cantata about the Zurich Sausage Event of 9th March 1522
Libretto by Ulrich Knellwolf
First performances: Zurich and Winterthur, March 2016, with Ulrike Andersen, alto, Harry White, saxophone, Edward Rushton, piano
Duration: 40 minutes
Extracts from the premiere on Youtube
 

sechs gedichte in die kindheit (2015)
Soprano, piano
Poems by Franz Huber, from "zungenfest", 1988
Premiere November 2015 as part of the staged concert "Childhood", Theater Stok, Zurich, with Simona Ryser, soprano and Edward Rushton, piano
Duration: 7 Minutes
 

Ce chant (2014)
Soprano, piano
Poem by Pierre de Ronsard
Duration: 3 minutes
 

Post (2013)
Five songs for soprano and piano
Texts by Tristan Klingsor, Bruno Ertler, Christian Morgenstern, Robert Herrick and Jens Peter Jacobsen
Duration: c. 10 minutes
 

Mes pensers (2013)
Soprano, piano
Text by Pierre de Ronsard
Duration c. 3 minutes
 

Kalte Lieder (2013)
Three songs on poems by Roland Merk
Alto, piano
Duration: 12 minutes
First performance April 20th 2013 with Franziska Schnyder, alto and Mary Brock Hess, piano
 

Alone (2012)
Soprano, piano
Text by James Joyce
Duration: 3 minutes
First performance: September 3rd 2013 with Sybille Diethelm, soprano and Fabienne Romer, piano
 

Serment qui m'est si cher (2012)
Three songs on poems by Ronsard
Soprano, piano
Texts by Pierre de Ronsard
Duration: 10 minutes
First performance: 27th February 2013 with Sybille Diethelm, soprano and Edward Rushton, piano
 

Sailor Songs (2011-12)
Baritone, piano
Texts by Edward Rushton
Duration: 6 minutes
First performance: September 2012 with Simon Wallfisch, baritone and Edward Rushton, piano
 

Have you seen but a white lily grow? (2011)
Soprano, piano
Text by Ben Jonson
Duration: ca. 2 minutes
 

Pandora, organische Maschine (2011)
Baritone, piano
Text by Dagny Gioulami
Duration: 40 minutes
First performance: 31st May 2012 with Jonathan Sells, baritone and Edward Rushton, piano
 

Nimmersatte Liebe (2010)
Soprano, piano
Text by Eduard Mörike
Duration: ca. 4 minutes
 

Soft, lovely, rose-like lips (2009, rev. 2021)
Mezzo soprano, piano
Text by Barnabe Barnes (1593)
Duration: ca. 4 minutes
 

Lesbias Spatz (2009)
Five songs for medium voice and piano on poems by Catullus (translated into German)
Duration: ca. 8 mins
First performance: 3rd July 2015 with Jeannine Hirzel, soprano and Edward Rushton, piano
Versions:
1. Voice and piano
2. Voice and 7 instruments (flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, cello, double bass, piano)
 
  
Three dreams (2009)
Texts by the composer
Duration: 4 mins
First performance of the ensemble version 21.iii.2010 by the ensemble für neue musik zürich
Versions:
1. Voice and monophonic piano
2. Voice and ensemble (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano)
 

Kurze Geschichte des Warenhauses Jelmoli in drei Phasen (2008)
Soprano, tenor, 14 players: 2 fl., 2 ob., 2 cl., 2 bn., horn, perc., vn., va., vc., cb.
Text by the composer
Commissioned by the Opernhaus Zürich (to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Jelmoli department store in Zurich) for first performance on September 5th, 2008
Duration: ca. 4 mins
 

To Bed (2008)
Baritone, piano
Text by Samuel Pepys (1633-1703)
1. Excellent discourse (Pepys' diary entry of 2.4.1664)
2. Great pleasure (16.1.1664)
3. Clouds (1.2.1664)
4. Sweat (11.7.1664)
5. With my whip (21.6.1662)
"With my whip" was originally composed for the NMC songbook
Duration: c. 10 minutes
Press:
"...characterful and gently subversive..." - Stephen Graham, Musical Criticism, 17.111.2009
 

Immersions (2006)
Soprano (or high voice), alto saxophone, piano
Text by Victor Hugo and various
Commissioned by Harry White
First performance 2.ii.2007 in the Villa Sträuli, Winterthur, by Valérie Guillorit, Harry White and Hans Adolfsen
Duration: 20 mins

"...always full of surprises. Humour, in the form of spicy and subtle observation, lights up his works, not only in the choice of texts. Whether it's dealing with oppressive heat or the convulsions of the digestive tract, Rushton's music furnishes the text with images, without making it seem ridiculous." - Anja Bühnemann, Landbote Winterthur, 5.ii.2007
"A characteristic of his music is the way it changes around between emphasis and parody, and its virtuosic play with the unreal, that leaves the listener in a stimulating state of insecurity." - Jürg Huber, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 5.ii.2007
 

Palladas: Songs (2005)
Soprano, piano
Text by Tony Harrison, from Palladas: poems
Commissioned by Leeds Lieder+
First performance: The Venue, Leeds, 2005 by Elizabeth Atherton and Iain Burnside
Duration: 10 mins

"...magnificent ... art song is no museum exhibit... Rushton engages in a fascinating dialectic... Corrosively lyrical, jaggedly theatrical" - Geoff Brown, The Times, 5.x.2005
 

Spanish Tragedy (2004)
Baritone, piano
Texts by Thomas Kyd, Anon. and Gutierre Diaz de Gomez
First performance: Jeremy Huw Williams and Nigel Foster, St Mary's Church, Warwick, 2nd July 2004 (Warwick Festival)
Duration: 17 mins 
 

Before (2002)
Soprano, 2 clarinets, viola, cello, double bass
Text by Nikolai Gogol, from Dead Souls
Commissioned by Warwick Arts Society
First performance: Royal Pump Rooms, Leamington Spa, 14.vii.2002, by Mary Wiegold and the Composers Ensemble cond. Richard Baker
Duration: 6 mins
 

Three Fragments of Shelley (2000)
Baritone, piano
Texts by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
First performance: Stratford upon Avon Town Hall, 18.x.2001, by William Coleman and Edward Rushton
Duration: c. 8 mins
 
 
China Soup (1999-2000)
Voice, piano
Texts by Tu Fu, Wei Ying-Wu, Ch'ên Yu-ting and Chao I
First performance: Zentralbibliothek, Zurich, 20.ix.2000, by Jeannine Hirzel and Edward Rushton
Duration: c.6 mins
 

How to Sing in Ancient Mexico (1999)
Tenor, piano
Text from the Florentine Codex
Duration: 5 mins
 

Les Psaumes de 1895 (1996)
Mezzo-soprano, piano
Texts by David the King, Guillaume Jean-Roi, Mme Lemire, Mme Lutteroth and Samson Jordan
Duration: 10 mins
First performance: Cambridge, 1997, by Louise Innes