Weir: on Buying a Horse & Other Songs
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on buying a horse 1. On buying a horse [2.26] The Voice of Desire 12. I: The voice of desire [4.05] 2. Ox Mountain was Covered by Trees [5.15] 13. II: White eggs in the bush [2.48] Songs from the Exotic 14. III: Written on terrestrial things [3.19] 3. I: Sevdalino, my little one [1.41] 15. IV: Sweet little red feet [1.26] 4. II: In the lovely village of Nevesinje [3.06] A Spanish Liederbooklet 5. III: The romance of Count Arnaldos [2.24] 16. I: Romance de fonte-frida [4.07] 6. IV: The song of the girl ravished away 17. II: Romance de rosa fresca [2.34] by the fairies in South Uist [2.03] 18. III: Seranilla de la zarzuela [2.09] Scotch Minstrelsy King Harald’s Saga 7. I: Bessie Bell and Mary Gray [3.57] 19. Act I [4.19] 8. II: Bonnie James Campbell [2.26] 20. Act II [3.22] 9. III: Lady Isobel and the Elf-knight [2.03] 21. Act III [4.34] 10. IV: The gypsy laddie [3.04] 22. Epilogue [1.30] 11. V: The braes of Yarrow [1.55] 23. Ständchen [3.15] Total Timing [68.06] From miniature to epic - songs from one of music’s great storytellers. JUDITH WEIR SUSAN BICKLEY - MEZZO-SOPRANO • ANDREW KENNEDY - TENOR AILISH TYNAN - SOPRANO • IAIN BURNSIDE - PIANO www.signumrecords.com A Note from The Composer It is songs, on the whole, that make the musical was written to commemorate the life and sudden world go round; but ‘contemporary classical’ death of Kent Opera, an inspirational force in the composers don’t seem to write them very much English artistic landscape. The text, from the (4th these days. During the times when I was writing century BC) Confucian commentator Mencius, the many parts of this collection, I felt I was taking muses on the long term effect of continually a holiday from the world of new music to practise cutting things down. an ancient craft. Josephine Nendick, known for her elegant, No one thing led me to write these songs these pioneering performances of Boulez, Nono and ways. Sometimes it was the voice, the words, the beyond, commissioned Songs from the Exotic pianist, the occasion, usually a combination of (1987) to mark her retirement from professional several. I have no idea why one singer ends up with singing. She was accompanied at the piano by Chinese philosophy whilst another has to sing a Michael Finnissy, whose sophisticated yet humane Serbian song about trousers. Finding the right words re-inventions of folk music greatly influenced this is one of the most enjoyable parts of the exercise, piece, in which vernacular poetry from Serbia, although increasingly problematic as I find myself Spain and South Uist is heard from my own, far- searching the same sources again and again. removed, musical point-of-view. On buying a horse (1991) was written for a concert Scotch Minstrelsy (1982) was commissioned by given in aid of an animal charity. They probably Glasgow University’s McEwan Bequest for the tenor weren’t crazy about this quick blast of peasant Neil Mackie, whose simple and unaffected cunning, which advises anyone offered a horse performances of Scottish folk songs I greatly with the wrong markings to “tear off his hide and admired. Intending to write a companion piece for feed him to the crows”. this pleasant repertoire, I made a selection of much abbreviated Border Ballads; but on closer Originally scored for three singers and small examination, the grisly happenings of these orchestra, Ox Mountain Was Covered By Trees (1990) familiar poems came as a shock, and the resulting 3 songs are histrionic and nervous, though framed by King Harald’s Saga (1979) asks a lot of its soprano ‘beautiful’ piano accompaniments, just as Scotland’s soloist (originally the intrepid Jane Manning). She violent past is obscured by its abundant scenery. has to sing every role, including duets and choruses, in a huge but brief grand opera about the Vikings, Alice Coote was the dedicatee of The Voice of Desire as retold in the 13th century Icelandic saga, (2003), which takes its title from its opening song, Heimskringla. Whilst appearing in many exciting about nightingales, by Robert Bridges. Each of the guises, she also presents her performance as a four poems in the cycle (by Bridges, Hardy and radio broadcast, giving helpful explanations of the Keats, alongside a Yoruba Huntsmen’s song) is opera’s three acts before leaping back into character. sung by a bird, whose perspective is more sophisticated than its uncomprehending human The medium of radio also inspired the short song listener realises. The nightingale lives in a darker Ständchen (1997). During Schubert’s bicentenary emotional world than we can imagine; the blue year, BBC Radio 3 invited many composers to cuckoo knows that the wars we blunder into will choose one of his song texts and set it again. bring destruction; the thrush sings joyfully whilst Separated from one of Schubert’s greatest-ever we are mentally blank; the dove has died rather than melodies, Rellstab’s verse still has a gentle, face emotional suffocation from its adoring owner. wistful charm whose muted, nocturnal atmosphere I have attempted to capture. Two magnificent (anonymous) Spanish romances from the sixteenth century, and a sly ballad provide © Judith Weir the poetry for A Spanish Liederbooklet (1988), written for the soprano Eileen Hulse. Although the music was created as a very direct response to what the words are saying, listeners have remarked that the music ‘sounds Spanish’, and it may well be that the basic melodic and rhythmic shapes of these songs emanate from the language itself. 4 s On buying a horse Judith Weir is a magic realist, the Gabriel García poems or prose from so far afield then combines Márquez of song. Once you enter her world it them in a way so fresh and utterly personal. seems entirely reasonable that fairies should run Setting John Keats is not in itself remarkable; off with a Hebridean baby, a turtle dove should twinning him with African folk poetry is. berate a nightingale, and a sailor should calm the winds with his special secret song. She is also a As is the quiet pizzicato tango that underpins storyteller. If her operas tell complete stories, Keats’s little white dove. But then Weir’s choice of these songs are like postcards. You will look in piano texture is another mark of her originality. vain for back-stories or follow-ups. What were She makes the instrument speak in a way entirely Bessie Bell and Mary Gray up to in their bower? her own, often with the simplest of means. The How many white feet did the horse have? And how atmosphere of Lady Isobel’s adventure with her Elf did Bey Pivlyanahin counter Bey Lujibovic’s Night is established by just two notes rocking outrageous jibe about the lacy apron? Maddeningly, backwards and forwards, somehow both dangerous Weir never tells us. She drops her pebble in the and witty. The first song of Scotch Minstrelsy has pond and walks away smiling. the disc’s most extended piano writing: it is less a song, in fact, than a piano piece with vocal On this disc a huge amount happens. Battles are commentary. A single line, blurred and irregular in fought, heads are chopped off. Wherever you look its pedaling, branches into two then goes back to people keep dying. Most of them in Scotland. one again. The plague, we learn, is breaking out by Judith Weir’s Scotland is a cruel, dark place, the River Almond, in Perth in 1645. Weir’s music is suffused with sinister magic. Her Serbia is little watery, yet also diseased. None of her sharp better, though at least it yields more laughs. Her primary colours here: this piano writing is all songs are songs from the exotic indeed. Weir’s shades of grey and murky brown. magic carpet takes us both north and south within Europe, then on, in parallel with her operas, to Her use of the voice is no less remarkable, Africa and China. Her nose for texts is one the changing in response to her vocal as well as her great delights of this collection: how she roots out poetic Muse. Ironically the most performed work on 5 this disc is also the most fiendishly difficult. King enlightens Siegfried, and ravens fly over him Harald’s Saga is a vocal commando course, where just before he gets stabbed in the back. Like only future SAS members need apply. A jeu d’esprit Wagner’s, Judith Weir’s birds are one step ahead of simultaneously testing and celebrating Jane the game. Manning’s legendary powers, King Harald has taken on a life of his own, through plucky singers © Iain Burnside relishing challenge and plucky audiences finding unexpected delight in this vocal tour de force. Different voices inspire dark Balkan chestiness in the Nevesinje area and high soprano brilliance when Spanish honour is at stake. The end of Ox Mountain uses impassive Maoist declamation. Her simplest, most tender vocal writing comes in our final Ständchen, as near as Weir gets to a conventional lovesong. Here, though, the earnest serenader is not her focus. Do you hear the nightingales? he asks his lover. The girl is unlikely to miss them: casually mentioned by Rellstab, ignored by Schubert, these birds are what this song is all about. But then birdsong runs as a leitmotif through this disc: a source of wisdom; the connection, in the case of Hardy’s Darkling Thrush, with a higher plane.