No drums. No beats. Just breath and ache. Anna Lapwood and Alison Balsom’s rendition of All things are quite silent doesn’t shout — it mourns. The organ hums like a memory. The trumpet cries like a wife left at the shoreline. Together, they don’t just perform… they grieve. Fans say it felt like time froze. One wrote, “It sounded like heartbreak being remembered by the wind.” No lighting tricks. No spectacle. Just two women, one hymn, and a silence so sacred it hurt to break it. Here’s the part that hits hardest — some songs don’t need volume. They only need truth.

It began with barely a breath — a hush so delicate it felt like snowfall.

In an ethereal new collaboration, organist Anna Lapwood and world-renowned trumpeter Alison Balsom breathed life into the English folk lament All things are quite silent. But this was no ordinary performance. This was a moment suspended in glass.

In concert – Alison Balsom & Anna Lapwood @ Chapel of St Augustine, Tonbridge School | Arcana.fm

Lapwood, weaving warmth through the stillness of her organ tones, created a soft undercurrent of sorrow — ancient, feminine, aching. Then came Balsom’s trumpet — not loud, not brash — but mournful, like the cry of a widow on a cliff. Every note hovered, then vanished, like a ghost remembering how to speak.

Anna Lapwood on X: "A very exciting day rehearsing with the glorious @alisonbalsom, trying our new programme in situ for the first time ❤️ Tonbridge chapel is such a beautiful space &

The arrangement felt like a prayer whispered to the ocean. A sailor’s wife waiting. A world paused.

As the final note faded, it wasn’t applause that felt appropriate — it was silence. That deep, aching kind.

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Anna Lapwood, Women leaders, Getting children back to school

Critics are already calling the collaboration “timeless” and “devastatingly pure.” But fans online said it best:
“It felt like watching grief learn how to sing.”

Here’s the part that hits hardest — sometimes, the quietest songs carry the loudest truths.

And in that silence, Anna and Alison made something unforgettable.

📰 “Where silence sings” — Anna Lapwood and Alison Balsom turn stillness into heartbreak in ‘All things are quite silent’