Weir's Fish/Bird

[sawyl]

Because I can't resist, here's Fish/Bird, the finally setting in Judith Weir's song cycle Natural History for soprano and orchestra. In some ways, I think this might be my favourite: the delicacy of writing, echoing the drops of water that fall from the fish/bird, the high registers, which Weir describes as reminscient of contrails, and final question about the nature of the infinite:

The words tell of a creature of such vast proportions that it is every bit as unknowable as the sky itself:

In the Northern Ocean, there is a fish, its name is the K'un; it is a fish a thousand miles broad, no-one knows how long. It changes into a bird, its wings are like clouds that hang from the sky. It leaves a wake in the water, three thousand miles; it rides in the wind, nine thousand miles high; it is gone six months before it is out of breath. All below looks the same as above; the haze of the heat, the dust storms, the sky at its back and a clear view ahead. Is it true that the sky is azure? Or is it the infinite distance? Is it true?

The soloist here is the magnificent Ailish Tynan, supported by the BBC SO under Martyn Brabbins...