John McLeod: Three Protest Pieces [download]

John McLeod's 'Three Protest Pieces' occur as piano interludes in his song-cycle 'Chansons de la Nuit et du Brouillard', to poems by the French poet and novelist Jean Cayrol.

Cayrol's post-war poetry and his many novels often explore, in a wide variety of styles, 'the never-ending threat of apocalypse to which man is subjected through his moral agency and through biological inheritance' (Ian Higgins) and these piano interludes attempt to explore and highlight the universal themes of animal cruelty and environmental pollution.

The premiere of this work was given at an Edinburgh Contemporary Arts Trust ( ecat) concert on 2nd March 1992 in Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh by Jane Manning (soprano) and Dominic Saunders (piano).

You can hear a recording of it by Jan Karl Ratio here.

Recording by Murray McLachlan on CD available from our online shop.