From Threshold to Threshold is a collaboration project between a translator of Celan's poetry, Ian Fairley and myself, premièred in Opera North on the 23rd of May 2011. 

Together we created a song cycle from poems written between the late 1940s and early 1960s by the Jewish German-language poet Paul Celan. These eight poems stand in response to the eight poems of Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben; the texts echo elements of Adelbert von Chamisso's figurative language, and, with the exception of the final song, they echo aesthetic elements from Frauenliebe und Leben parallel poem as chord intervals and progression. 

While composing I felt that this song cycle represents Celan's life cycle up to the early 1960s. Celan moved to Paris in the late 1940's hoping to start a new life, however in 1970 he completed suicide. His tragic cycle of life, is represented in this song cycle. The last poem 'From Darkness to Darkness' represents Celan's darkness and his decision to end it.

From Threshold to Threshold presents a narrative of longing, union and loss conceived for another time and for another, counter-tenor, voice.