Plays Oscar Wilde’s
“The Nightingale and the Rose”
Pianist Will Butterworth plays The Nightingale and the Rose, a self-composed suite of music, inspired by Oscar Wilde’s famous story for children.
This suite of music employs beautiful melodies and rich and dark harmony, to retell Wilde’s story of love and sacrifice. Butterworth uses these melodies as starting points for improvisation, and the result is intense, exhilarating and riveting music making.
“A nightingale overhears a student complaining that his professor’s daughter will not dance with him, as he is unable to give her a red rose. The nightingale visits all the rose-trees in the garden, and one of the roses tells her there is a way to produce a red rose, but only if the nightingale is prepared to sing the sweetest song for the rose all night with her heart pressing into a thorn, sacrificing her life. Seeing the student in tears, and valuing his human life above her bird life, the nightingale carries out the ritual. She impales herself on the rose-tree’s thorn so that her heart’s blood can stain the rose. The student takes the rose to the professor’s daughter, but she again rejects him because another man has sent her some real jewels and “everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers.” The student angrily throws the rose into the gutter, returns to his study of metaphysics, and decides not to believe in true love anymore.”
Will Butterworth was born in Edinburgh, his father is a classical violinist and Will grew up playing classical music on the cello and improvising on the piano. In 1999 he began to play jazz professionally in Scotland, and in 2004 he moved to London. Will has worked with many of Britain’s finest musicians, and has released two albums as leader (music chamber records). He is also one half of the ‘Dylan Howe/Will Butterworth’ duo, which has achieved great critical acclaim.