CKD 329 ALSO AVAILABLE BY JAMES GILCHRIST ON LINN RECORDS Oh Fair to See On Wenlock Edge Gerald Finzi Ralph Vaughan Williams CKD 253 CKD 296 CKD 335 Songs of Muriel Herbert Kenneth Leighton (1929–1988) text: Ruskin & Hopkins Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) text: Hardy earth, sweet earth… (laudes terrae), op.94 winter words, op.52 1 i. prelude – 8 i. at day-close in november there was no thought in any of us 9 ii. midnight on the great western 2 ii. inversnaid 10 iii. wagtail and baby 3 iii. contemplation – in the snow 11 iv. the little old table 4 iv. the ashtree 12 v. the choirmaster’s burial 5 v. binsey poplars 13 vi. proud songsters 6 vi. hurrahing in harvest 14 vii. at the railway station, upway 7 vii. ribblesdale 15 viii. before life and after James Gilchrist tenor Anna Tilbrook piano 2 3 Anna and I were newcomers to Leighton’s Earth, Sweet Earth… (Laudes “How long, how long?” feels to me every bit the echo of Leighton’s final “Earth, Terrae) when we began to prepare for this recording. It is a monumental work, Sweet Earth!” huge in concept and execution. The first movement alone lasts more than ten minutes. One has little sense that the voice will enter at all following the Winter Words is well known, and rightly so. Succinct, sprinkled with humour, mighty, rhapsodic piano exposition, realised here so perfectly by Anna. And yet dark and arrestingly profound, it has touched people and moved audiences the dreaming quality so suits Ruskin’s sinuous prose, that it is possible almost for many years. Earth, Sweet Earth… (Laudes Terrae) will, I suspect, be new to overlook the profundity of what is being said. Leighton has very carefully to many listeners. Partly this is a result of its enormous scale and scope (not chosen Ruskin and Hopkins to explore, with great tenderness, the writers’ least in the problems this presents to performers – we certainly felt them!). helpless sense of loss when confronted by humanity’s inevitable, progressive But Anna and I have been greatly nourished by getting to know this astonishing march towards the industrialised modern world. work, and it is our hope that in its little way, this performance will help to bring it to a wider audience. I hope you enjoy it. This worry – that somehow humans are losing something profoundly important, something that connects us both with the natural world and with each other, © James Gilchrist, 2010 some inexpressible affinity with the very spirit of nature – this worry has been niggling us ever since the birth of humanity, but has been so much more acutely felt since the social upheavals of the nineteenth century. Its very inexpressibility seems to mean that it has been the provenance of artists more recorded at Christ’s Hospital, Horsham with kind permission th th th than anybody else. None would deny the huge benefits that human ingenuity on 8 -10 September 2008 and 26 November 2008 has brought to society, but have we lost something thereby? Perhaps its most produced and engineered by Philip Hobbs obvious modern voice is the “environmental” movement, but our disc takes post-production by Julia Thomas, Finesplice, UK three writers from a vast number which stretches from Shelley to the Rossettis cover & inlay photograph by Gerry Ward and beyond who were mighty vexed by this problem. Ruskin, Hopkins and Hardy ‘snow scene’ photograph by John Haxby share a profound unease with industrialised progress. Not, I think, that in itself photograph of James Gilchrist by John Haxby progress is harmful, but that its benefits come with a cost to nature, society photograph of Anna Tilbrook by Patrick Allen and individuals that is both inexpressible and invaluable. And while Leighton, design by John Haxby Ruskin and Hopkins deal quite explicitly with our relationship to our nurturing Earth, Britten and Hardy explore this in our relations to one another: the child- like affinity with nature; the Wordsworthian glimmer of the divine within each of us; the “nescience” of Eden: all gone. The heartfelt cry for its restoration, 4 5 Kenneth Leighton earth, sweet earth… (laudes terrae) between them they were probably the greatest advocates of his songs during Benjamin Britten winter words their lifetimes. Leighton’s contributions to English song are not nearly as considerable – although important nonetheless – and his works for solo voice Both Benjamin Britten and Kenneth Leighton are inextricably linked with and piano that remain in his catalogue are limited to one early cycle and one the human voice as a medium for composition. While Britten is, of course, late work: Five Shakespeare Songs composed in 1951 and Earth, Sweet Earth… widely known for his enduring and large-scale operas – repeatedly heralded (Laudes Terrae), Op. 94 completed in 1986. as masterpieces of the genre – Leighton is more often remembered for his considerable corpus of music for the church. However, both these composers Earth, Sweet Earth… (Laudes Terrae) was begun during 1985 and completed also made valuable contributions to the English song medium. toward the end of Leighton’s life in July 1986, a decade after Britten’s death, and some thirty-five years after his previous work in the genre. Leighton preferred Despite being relatively close contemporaries, there is no specific record to label song cycles as ‘solo cantatas’ and Earth, Sweet Earth is no exception. It of the paths of these two British composers crossing. For much of the time is substantial at approximately forty minutes and there is a strong link between they were resident at almost opposite ends of the British Isles, and moved in Britten and this work, as it was commissioned by the Scottish tenor Neil Mackie rather different circles: Leighton was for most of his career employed by the in memory of Britten’s lifelong partner Peter Pears. As such it was the second university’s music faculty at Edinburgh (apart from two years at Oxford from work that Leighton had written with this link to Pears; These are thy wonders, 1968 to 1970), while Britten was a full-time composer, and performer, based in Op. 84, for tenor and organ, was completed in 1981, and also commissioned by the south of England. There are links and similarities between the two though Neil Mackie, this time for the occasion of Pears’s seventieth birthday. and throughout his life Leighton spoke of the important influence of Britten on his earlier works in particular, having first heard some of his earlier choral The label of ‘solo cantata’ indicates that Earth, Sweet Earth was very works as a chorister in the choir of Wakefield Cathedral. Both composers much conceived as a whole and that musical unity and continuity was also were considerable pianists and regularly performed their own works, as well an important element of his compositional processes in a work of this as those by other composers, as both soloist and accompanist, and in both kind. Leighton indicates on the score that ‘The work should preferably be concerts and broadcasts. performed complete – but I, II, V & VI may be sung separately. Alternatively IV & V or VI & VII may be performed in pairs’. It was first performed at the 1987 Britten’s contributions to the genre of English song are particularly notable Cheltenham Festival on 6 July, with Neil Mackie accompanied by John Blakely and occupy a vital place in his output. He also wrote an enduring amount of at the piano. Leighton gives us some important insights into the work in a vocal music for the church although, as with Leighton, it was not an overriding short programme note: element of his catalogue as a whole. Britten inevitably wrote many of his ‘The idea of a song-cycle or solo cantata (as I prefer to call it) was works for voice and piano with himself and the tenor Peter Pears in mind, and suggested [by Neil Mackie] in March 1985, and this work was 6 7 completed in July 1986. The proposal was welcomed not only ties together with his treatment of motifs and textures. The text is concerned because of a special sympathy which became apparent in […] two with a retrospective view of youth and reads as one of the more truthful and earlier works [These are thy wonders and Symphony No. 3, Laudes sincere passages in Ruskin’s work, which is only partly autobiographical. Musicae, Op. 90 (1984)], but also because of my renewed personal interest in the piano both as performer and composer.’ The remaining six songs are all on a smaller scale compared to the opening, and all contain texts from the poetry and journals of Hopkins. In ‘Inversnaid’ While Leighton was often inspired by the British metaphysical poets of the the ‘wildness’ of a Highland stream (or ‘burn’) is eulogised; the dramatic seventeenth century, here he makes use of texts by the Victorian writers John description by Hopkins is translated into a lustrous image that Leighton himself Ruskin (1819-1900) and Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889). He goes on to would have known all too well. In his note, he goes on to say that ‘in addition state that: to attempting a setting of ‘Inversnaid’, with its obvious Highland connection, I ‘The hills and countryside of Scotland in particular have been a was led also to other great poems which recognise and praise the eternal on source of wonder and inspiration for many years, and a previous the ‘Sweet Earth’ around us.’ He also states that ‘the piano plays a special and large-scale choral work Laudes Montium, composed in 1975 extended role in an attempt to express the meaning of Hopkins’ incredibly rich for the centenary of St Andrews University Musical Society, is poetry and prose.’ A common theme in Leighton’s music is that of the seasons, preoccupied with a similar theme and its mystical connotations.