Muriel Spark Centenary Concert

Society members were among a packed house for the Muriel Spark Centenary Concert in

London’s Southbank Centre on October 13. It featured the world premiere of “White Flame,”

a song cycle composed by David Matthews and commissioned by Penelope Jardine, which

set five of Muriel Spark’s poems to music. The poems were all written between 1948 and

1949, eight years before Spark’s first novel was published. The first two, The Victoria Falls,

and Like Africa, sprang from her experience of living in Africa during World War II. The

other three were free translations of the Roman poets Horace and Catullus. The song cycle

was beautifully performance by mezzo-soprano Victoria Simmonds, accompanied by The

Nash Ensemble, and was dedicated to Penelope Jardine who was present. In her programme

introduction, Ms Jardine wrote of the composer: “By strange coincidence, many years ago,

David came to Tuscany from Rome one foggy and freezing November night. He camped

there with a few friends in the ruined rectory I had just bought (no heat, no light, no water, no

windows, no doors). This house was to become Muriel Spark’s last home. I am so glad that

David survived his ordeal to become the extremely elegant composer he is today.”
Olga Wojtas