Vanishing Point Louise Hawes

In 2016, lutenist Sofie Vanden Eynde put her instrument aside for nine months to recover from a severe burnout. Five years later, she felt the need to look back. Would it be possible to articulate the inner reality of a burnout musically: to make a burnout audible, tangible, understandable and - who knows - avoidable?

The General Assembly's music paints an engrossing and unsettling picture. Matt Wicking's songs use poetry and magic-realism, to chart the points where human and non-human nature connect, where the lines blur and dissolve. While the song-writing draws from the deep well of blues and folk storytelling, sonically it soars. Reverb-drenched guitars, synth and mellotron create swelling soundscapes.

Sofie set out to find pieces from the solo lute repertoire that she intuitively associated with the different phases of the text. The result is a concert with a surprising palette of colors, styles and atmospheres. At times she chose the rich, powerful sound of the theorbo. At other times, she chose the fragile, muted sound of the Renaissance lute
The Prélude by French Baroque composer Robert de Visée combines phrases full of grandeur with pauses for breath full of intimate doubt. The music of John Dowland draws on the typically English predilection for melancholy. Francesco da Milano's fantasies and ricercars echo not only the bright colors of the Italian Renaissance, but also the constant search for a new beginning. Luis de Narvaez's Cancion del emperador is an arrangement for lute of Josquin Desprez's famous chanson Mille Regretz, a song that exudes serene regret for all that is not. And in the Chaconne by Robert de Visée, the same chord progression spins on its own axis. At Sofie's request, Vladimir Gorlinsky created a new composition that reflects the state of mind in the midst of a burnout