Bear with me while I write a few notes…

Messiaen may have listened to birdsong for inspiration, but when Roxanna Panufnik was looking for material for a new quartet she had something bigger in mind. Much bigger: her Heartfelt is based on the heartbeat of a European Brown Bear. Though we are tempted to think of Panufnik spending days crawling through the undergrowth, microphone in hand, the reality is a little more prosaic – she was in fact able to get a cardiac soundfile of a Bristol Zoo bear called Alfie when he went under general anaesthetic for an op. To thank her ursine assistant, Panufnik has now arranged for the Sacconi Quartet to perform Heartbeat to Alfie himself… at a safe distance.