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THE SUNLIGHT ON THE GARDEn INTRODUCTION Some thoughts around by Clare Wilkinson the words and the music THE SONGS OF STEPHEN WILKINSON (b.1919) (not following programme order) My father’s music has been part of my awareness by Stephen Wilkinson 1 Grantchester James Gilchrist tenor, Anna Markland piano [5.34] from my earliest days. Despite being very 2 Proud Songsters Mhairi Lawson soprano, Ian Buckle piano [1.28] varied (it spans 80 years), it has a particular The Sunlight on the Garden lies somewhere in 3 At the Manger Clare Wilkinson mezzo-soprano, Ian Buckle [4.08] language which is all his own; a unique voice, the middle of an output of songs spanning most 4 Joly Jankyn Clare Wilkinson, Ian Buckle [3.13] yet deeply rooted in the English song tradition of a rather long lifetime. It evokes World War 2, 5 Eternal Summer Matthew Brook bass, Anna Markland piano [2.22] of Finzi, Gurney and Quilter. On becoming an a real watershed for me, and I have allowed 6 Winter Snow Mhairi Lawson, Ian Buckle [1.05] adult and a musician myself I understood its myself a hint of the wail of an air-raid siren and 7 Chapels James Gilchrist, Anna Markland [3.04] quality, and decided that it ought to be known a bomb-drop. 8 Heaven Clare Wilkinson, Ian Buckle [5.53] more widely. This, combined with my father’s 9 The Hour-Glass Mhairi Lawson, Ian Buckle [2.01] natural humility, has led me to be the one MacNeice expresses man’s traditional complaint, 0 Come away, Death James Gilchrist, Anna Markland [3.23] who champions his work. Dad is a deep and but with a captivating deftness all his own, the q Crabbed age & youth James Gilchrist, Anna Markland [2.02] detailed reader of poetry, and each song grows words seeming to lead him on of themselves w To a Young Girl Matthew Brook, Anna Markland [1.17] out of a long, intense consideration of the text. almost casually. But suddenly, with a stroke of e O do not love too long Matthew Brook, Anna Markland [1.35] r Maude Gonne takes down a book Clare Wilkinson, Ian Buckle [2.32] In those phases he sits for hours brooding, not spine-chilling magic, he makes Shakespeare’s t Politics James Gilchrist, Anna Markland [1.04] even hearing offers of cups of tea. How lucky Antony speak to us from ancient Egypt and y Spring & Fall Mhairi Lawson, Ian Buckle [2.39] we are to be associated with these musician the here and now becomes the universal. u The Garden Clare Wilkinson, Ian Buckle [3.32] colleagues, who lift the songs off the page with i The Sunlight on the Garden James Gilchrist, Anna Markland [2.25] such intelligence and wit. For our family this My approach was also to let the words lead me o The Gate in the Wall Clare Wilkinson, Ian Buckle [3.25] recording has been a very special experience. I on of themselves, hoping that instinct would p Running to Paradise Matthew Brook, Anna Markland [1.57] commend these excellent songs to you, not only come up with something organic. a Birdspeak Mhairi Lawson, Ian Buckle [1.58] out of love for the composer but out of deep s The Owl and the Pussycat Clare Wilkinson, Ian Buckle [3.00] conviction that they deserve your attention, In Proud Songsters Hardy is concerned with d The Wind and the Moon James Gilchrist, Anna Markland [4.54] and hope they will find the place they deserve in the same topic, but he says it with little f Kiss Matthew Brook, Anna Markland [0.44] the repertoire. birds. He gives us the busy music of an avian Total timings: [65.01] evensong – another day gone of such a short life, eternal though it may seem to the songsters www.signumrecords.com - 3 - themselves. Happily his last phrase just about remembered heaven of Grantchester. I had my shocking. Do we hear cynghanedd at work? I singing. I thought I could help him to ‘put off gives me time to fuse its four elements and doubts whether so overquoted a line as ‘honey hope the poem was not presented to Margaret black’ by setting his entertaining text to a fledge another brand-new songster. still for tea’ was susceptible to serious setting, herself. Did he show it to his Father Confessor? cheerful tune in the major over a solemn minor but eventually decided to accept it as an key hymn tune in the bass. I think I have East Anglian rectories probably informed two expression of the genuine nostalgia Brooke No fewer than five songs set poems by Yeats, three succeeded, for he clearly has a little giggle. horticultural songs, providing The Garden with felt as he sat in the hot and noisy Café of them stemming from his long unhappy love ‘Fair Quiet’ and ‘a green shade’ for Marvell’s des Westens in Berlin in 1912. You must judge for Maude Gonne. I have made her, now old and Joly Jankyn needs no encouragement to lighten idyll, and in The Gate in the Wall ‘beds and whether I was wise. grey, not only ‘take down this book’, as bidden, the liturgy; his merie ton in celebrating the borders’ no longer accessible but clearly visible but read aloud and murmur, ‘a little sadly’ Christmas Mass makes his eleyson with its to Eleanor Farjeon’s nostalgic eye. I pruned all the parlour games stuff from the (superb irony!), how love fled – and spent a misplaced accent (like a hiccup) almost poem. Brooke died tragically immature, but left great passion on the creation of great Irish verse. hilarious. The young girl is besotted with him, Shakespeare gave me three texts. If Come more memorable lines than that one. How about and on him her hopes of heaven are fixed. away, Death and Crabbed Age seem strangely ‘lissome clerical printless toe’ for a start? – or Politics is a plain lust-song inspired by a A slow upward piano arpeggio, repeated disparate in style, the one expansive, the other ‘intolerable consanguinity’, the only two-word young lady who wisely prefers to remain gradually rising in the processional music, terse and a bit jazzy, please remember that they pentameter I know? anonymous. And Running to Paradise is a tells us that she is carrying his child. By way were written almost fifty years apart. ballad in contempt of all things material. of greeting as he administers the sacrament Nothing immature about Heaven, an atheistic It took the best part of another twenty to evoke to her, he manages a wink and steps on her romp - ‘and the worm that never dies’! It is an In The Hour Glass the accompaniment comes toe. Finally, in shame and religious fear, she Eternal Summer. The opening phrase on the ironic advance on his excellent Sonnet ‘Failure’ into its own, takes the lead, in fact, with a piano is very modest, almost as if the poet takes over his eleyson and turns it to a curse. on the same topic, indeed arguably his perpetuum mobile. For Ben it is not sand, but were thinking aloud, but as the verse rises best poem. I have severely disciplined the dust or cinders running in the glass. The fly Auden handles sacred mysteries with reverence to its final hubristic claim it becomes an accompaniment to ensure maximum clarity bumbles at the lamp and is finally burnt, at and shows a surprisingly deep and perceptive enthusiastic vivat. to the words. I loved setting it and, as I’m sure which point the singer takes over the empathy with Mary rooted in her anxious perpetuum mobile, which, deprived of final watch . Her agonised outcry in Anything but eternal, Winter Snow takes a you’ll hear, Clare loves singing it. At the Manger single verse from Christina Rossetti for a cadence, just peters out. Nothing to add response to her role is far more convincingly tiny atmospheric cameo. It began life as a Spring and Fall - To a young child - is a deeply but a formidable exclamation mark: Wham! human than the received version. A privilege Christmas card. touching little poem, though hardly characteristic of to offer music to such a text. religious Hopkins. ‘The blight that man was In Chapels ‘the nation’s hymn writer’ takes time The contrast in the two Rupert Brooke songs born for’ continues to shock. ‘Worlds of wanwood off to berate Welsh deacons for their joyless There are three songs for children. I have allowed is between the imagined fishyHeaven and the leafmeal lie’ is just as memorable if not as solemnity and their congregation for lugubrious Coleridge a tweet in Birdspeak and Lear a purr in - 4 - - 5 - The Owl and the Pussycat, and George MacDonald We take our farewell of you with a Kiss. If you 2 Proud Songsters Sleep. What have you learned from the womb even a wheesh or two in The Wind and the Moon find it surprising, so too did Leigh Hunt way that bore you – we need not concern ourselves with his back in the early nineteenth century. It gave him The thrushes sing as the sun is going, But an anxiety your Father cannot feel? obvious intention to present the failed coup as a lift. You too, I hope. And the finches whistle in ones and pairs, Sleep. What will the flesh that I gave do for you, a lesson in humility for the young. And as it gets dark loud nightingales Or my mother love, but tempt you from His will? In bushes Why was I chosen to teach His son to weep? TEXTS A hundred Vicars down the lawn; Pipe, as they can when April wears, Little one, sleep.

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