World premiere of 'Twilight' - for tenor and piano

On 19th July 2025, Yuanfan Yang's new piece Twilight for tenor & piano received its world premiere in Armenia.

Dedicated to Arpine Kalinina, the initiator of this project, the piece was written for the British and Armenian Musical Bridge project in 2024, which celebrates the cultural exchange between Britain and Armenia.

Twilight was premiered by Berj Karazian (tenor) and Anahit Dilbaryan (piano) at the British and Armenian Musical Bridge – 10th Anniversary Concert Komitas Museum-Institute on 19th July 2025.

Yuanfan writes: 'When Arpine Kalinina wrote to me and sent me several English-translated Armenian poems, asking me to put one of them to music, for an exciting new collection of contemporary vocal works based on Armenian poetry, I was immediately struck by the grave beauty of ‘Twilight’ by the poet Misak Metsarents. The poem is made all the more poignant, as the poet himself died tragically young (1886 – 1908).

The poem almost gives the reader a false pretence, as by reading from the surface, one is lead to believe it is a purely pastoral, descriptive Romantic poem with much naturalistic lyricism in its imagery, but by the end of the poem, we realise it’s an incredibly sorrowful poem, about the pains of loss.

After listening to the original Armenian language poem (which itself is slightly longer, with more tragic nuances), I was moved by the delicateness of the Armenian language, which for me adds to the raw human emotion of the poem – something that vividly inspired me as I set about writing music to the poem, as I try to capture the fragility, longing, and loneliness the poem so movingly conveys.

I chose the tenor voice, in line with the male narrative of the poem, and I tried to closely mirror the nuances of the poem – at least, from my interpretation of the poem – with my use of texture and especially harmony, whereupon the consonance or dissonance of harmony directly reflects the tone and context of each line, or in some cases, each word. All this, whilst carefully exploring consonance and dissonance to evoke the pastoral tones in different ways, as the poem moves from light to dark.'

Yuanfan finished composing Twilight in late November 2024.