Thorvald Blough and Solomon-Miles Donnelly are both medical students at the University of Liverpool. Thorvald previously studied singing in his native California and then moved to London where he worked as an opera singer. He has performed with various opera companies such as Grange Park Opera, Opera Holland Park, and British Youth Opera. He currently sings with the Liverpool Bach Collective. His switch to medicine was spurred by the Covid-19 pandemic when he took a job as a healthcare assistant at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London. His experiences on the wards during the pandemic inspired a career change to become a doctor. Solomon attended Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester where, in tandem with a demanding academic curriculum, he studied piano. He has achieved his Fellow of Trinity College, London diploma in piano performance and has performed in numerous competitions and concerts both nationally and internationally.

This lunchtime recital is about painful love. Thorvald and Solomon will begin with Johannes Brahms’s 'Von Ewige Liebe' (or 'Eternal Love') depicting Western music’s most intense, transcendent, and unfettered proclamation of love in song. By the end of the song, we are left with the belief that while the strong alloys of iron and steel can be melted down, love will endure forever.

Franz Schubert’s Winterreise (or 'Winter’s Journey') begins with a lover leaving the house of his beloved. He sings, “a stranger I arrived and a stranger I leave”. Although the couple’s love endures forever, have circumstances outside of their control prohibited their union and set him on this journey into the cold? The following songs capture snapshots of our protagonist thrust into nature where his surroundings reflect back to him what he feels within. Schubert composed the cycle in two parts. Part one, composed in 1827, will be performed at this recital and comprises of the first twelve songs of this extraordinary cycle.

Part of the Lunchtime Concert Series