In the spirit of Anglo-Saxon riddles and storytelling, these two songs are very much 'round the campfire' settings. The first (Cuckoo) imitates the birds behaviour, including removing and replacing notes at the beginning, as the bird does with eggs. The second (Swan) is largely of a kind of antique, lugubrious nature, depicting the birds graceful gliding through the river and the air.
Two Anglo-Saxon Riddles was first performed by Hannah Davey (Soprano) and The Orchestra of the Swan conducted by David Curtis at Birmingham Conservatoire in 2009.
