Lord Berners: Le Carrosse Du Saint-Sacrement

Lord Berners was an eccentric novelist, painter and aesthete, but it is as a composer that he is best remembered. Berners saw Prosper Mérimée's play Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement in 1917and 'was at once fascinated by the grace, the spirit and the character of this little work'. Abandoning operatic tradition, this light and transparently orchestrated version of the narrative unfolds concisely and continuously. The amusing tale is one of domestic bickering and a minor miracle brought about by an act of charity, 'held together in the style of a symphonic poem'.