View Studios

Four Songs for Soprano 1 The Pear Tree 4'48" 2 Bargain Basement 3'32" 3 Sleight-of-hand 2'29" 4 Sonnet XVIII 2'47" Four Archaic Songs 5 In Praise Of Art 2'13" 6 To Saint Mary Magdalen 2'43" 7 A Prayer to the Holy Trinity 1'52" Samantha Smith 8 Blow, blow thou winter winde 1'55" Five Australian Songs 9 Botany Bay 2'54" [the innocent youth is condemned to transportation] q0 Moreton Bay 3'11" [he describes the horrors of the penal system] qa Click Go the Shears 2'33" [he survives to become an itinerant worker] qs The Streets of Forbes 2'46" [he loses all and becomes a bushranger] qd Waltzing Matilda 3'36" [under persecution he takers his own life] Richard Peter Maddox Letters from Armidale qf Lovely Day 0'57" qg Figs 0'53" qh Letters 1'53" qj News Flashes 0'47" Recorded on 8 and 10 September 1998 qk Rain 1'12" in the Newcastle Conservatorium Auditorium, Australia. The Stranger in My Skin * Piano by Stuart and Sons. ql Stranger 4'13" w0 Looking Down From Bridges 4'51" P 2000 Move Records wa The Swimming-Pool 1'51" move.com.au ws Bedroom Conversations 2'25" wd A Peasant Idyll 2'46" Graham Maddox Four Songs for Soprano 2 Bargain Basement (Frederick T. Come on, my dear: Macartney) there’s nothing for us here. 1 The Pear Tree (Dame Mary Gilmore) Thank goodness, we still have, in the Lay Not there, my dear, not there; By “What be you a-lookin’ at, Emily Ann, this way—down the stair. (for what it’s worth Starin’ with your eyes all set?” Have you a line of hillocks and some when we two die) “I bin seein’ a ghost, Amanda, white that remnant double-width of damaged And I be a-seein’ it yet.” absurd young lambs, all wool, and light earth. “Where was it you seen it, Emily Ann?” as leaping air? Modern Australian Poetry ed. H.M. “It was hung on the big pear tree; No, sir—sorry!... Green, Melbourne University Press I seen a ghost, Amanda, Alright, don’t worry. 1946, © J.M. Auld And the ghost it said it was me. You keep, perhaps “Put your hand on my heart, Amanda, some inexpensive scraps 3 Sleight-of-hand (Bruce Dawe) Feel of the life of it there; of early green For the ghost was hung on the big pear springtime sateen, Especially I like the bit where tree, with colour partly lost they take the sun away It had my eyes, and my hair.” in folds of frost, by sliding a cloud hinged to a hill prinked with those flowers that smell over it late in the day “O moon that blanches the grass, so sweetly?—I know them well —it is so nicely done, this part, Why is the tree so white?” but can’t recall the name: barely noticeable until There is a bird in the tree, I saw them somewhere a month ago. it is, well, over... Was never a bird so white! Unfortunately, madam, no... I like particularly Was never a bird so white, Ah, what a shame! the humility in the skill But its head bends over, I say, I’d like a length of thin that would much rather dodge There, where it hangs in the tree, pale sea-water to wear next to the skin. the embarrassing applause, Dead for a lover. None? A creek, then?—with embroideries and under the finger-tented “O moonlight sheeting the grass, of eucalypt trees, cloth gradually withdraws What will cover her there?” the soldierly sort that gets until there is only the shadowy There will be frost on the tree, dignity from its golden epaulets. stage, the hat, cloak, cane, And frost on her hair. No, sir, impossible.... the tumbler of still water, “O white moon turn from that tree, Oh, well— and last but not least, the plain Shine not so clear and high, Then, do you stock gesture of reversal even now She was too young for frost on her hair, that delicate sort of frock returning to scarves She was too young to die!” now worn by blossoming orchards, thin, of the most fluid silk the world’s Fourteen Men, Angus & Robertson wide and airy, like a crinoline? pocketful of doves. 1954, © ETT Imprint No, madam, no; but I might find... Sometimes Gladness, Longman O, never mind. Cheshire 1978, © Addison Wesley Longman 4 Sonnet XVIII (William Shakespeare) composer who adds music to an existing said nothing she was seen to droop. One poem must pay a great deal of respect night, to the surprise of the two elder Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? to the words which the poet has chosen women in the kitchen, it being the middle Thou art more lovely and more temperate; and organised with such care. In some of the week and not Saturday, she took Rough winds do shake the darling buds of places I have tried for the Renaissance a bath “all over”, and put on everything May, ideal of “word-painting”; in others I have clean, even to a white frock and flounced And summer’s lease hath all too short a been more concerned with overall mood- petticoat she had saved for special date; painting. occasions. In the morning, out in the frost, Sometime too hot the eye of heaven they found her hanged on the big pear- shines, ‘The Pear Tree’ is the simplest of the four, tree in the orchard. Then they knew why And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; I suppose because the simplicity of the she had taken a bath, and why she had And every fair from fair sometime story did not call for over-elaboration. In dressed in white. ‘She wanted to go clean declines, ‘Bargain Basement’ the rich imagery of and all in white to her Maker’, said the By chance or natures changing course Macartney’s poem seemed to demand a elder women. untrimm’d; fairly rich setting. Bruce Dawe’s ‘Sleight- “When the moon was full, the story But thy eternal summer shall not fade, of-hand’ was originally published in was that her ghost could sometimes be Nor lose possession of that fair thou the Sydney Morning Herald, and I was seen between the trees, or where she owest, again struck by the poet’s imagery. To had hanged herself. As a child, when Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his try and create a sense of mystery and staying at Tenandra, I used to peer out the shade, disorientation I set this in a 7/4 time- window at night, looking for the ghost. While in eternal lines thou growest; signature. Unfortunately, the one who I never saw the ghost, but the moonlight So long as men can breathe, ended up being most disoriented was the was so white it was terrifying.” or eyes can see, pianist! Shakespeare’s poetry has always So long lives this, fascinated me, and the sonnet ‘Shall I Four Archaic Songs and this gives life to thee. compare thee to a summer’s day’ virtually Complete Works, Rex Library, 1973 wrote itself as a song. 5 In Praise Of Art (Michelangelo Buonarotti, translated by Paul Stenhouse) These were almost my first attempt at The following note to ‘The Pear Tree’ was song-writing. They were not conceived written by Dame Mary Gilmore: How is it, my love, that as we humans as a cycle, but were grouped together for know convenience. I subsequently learned that “When I was a child there was a young By long experience, an image carved in it was not necessary to make the music girl employed as kitchen help at Tenandra stone as florid as possible. They represent four Park, then a station belonging to Edward Of mountain, hard as iron, survives alone experimental attempts to grapple with the Beveridge. Everyone liked this girl. She When craftsmen by age to ashes are problem of combining words and music. was about sixteen and was courted by a brought low? Each proposes a different solution, but young man on the place. Suddenly the Sculptor to sculpted rock must bow, and common to them all is the notion that a man disappeared, and though the girl go Like Nature to Art, and as Victor it And so the zeale, which then shall burne Because thou art not seene, enthrone. in mee Although thy breath be rude. The corruption of Time and Death when May make my hart lyke to a lampe Heigh ho, sing heigh ho unto the greene sown appere, holly, Bear little fruit where Art is King; for so And in my spouses pallace give me place. Most friendship is fayning; most Loving Can I give us both long life, not flesh and mere folly: bone 7 A Prayer to the Holy Trinity Then heigh ho the holly But faces carved in marble, or colour (Richard Stanyhurst) This Life is most jolly. bright. Each of us will I save from everlasting Trinity blessed, deitee coequal, Freize, freize thou bitter skie night, Unitee sacred, God one eeke in essence, That dost not bight so nigh, So that a thousand years beyond it will be Yeeld to thy servaunt, pitifully calling As benefitts forgot: known Merciful heering. Though thou the waters warpe, How lovely was your face, how harrowed Vertuous living did I long relinquish, Thy sting is not so sharpe, mine, Thy wyl and precepts miserablye As friend remembered not.

Load more