The Byre Theatre, St Andrews, 3.30pm 4 March 2016 Lana Bode (piano), Frances Thorburn (reader), James Turnbull (oboe), Kate Valentine (soprano), Paul Webster (bagpipes) The inaugural concert of ‘Virginia Woolf & Music’ http://virginiawoolfmusic.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk Kindly supported by PREFACE Welcome to the inaugural concert of the series ‘Virginia Woolf & Music’. The series explores the role of music in Woolf’s life and afterlives: it includes new commissions, world premieres and little-known music by women composers. Woolf (1882-1941) was a knowledgeable, almost daily, listener to ‘classical’ music, fascinated by the cultural practice of music and by the relationships between music and writing. Towards the end of her life she famously remarked, ‘I always think of my books as music before I write them’. Unlike later concerts, which explore music directly ‘inspired’ by Woolf’s works, the inaugural concert is intended as a more oblique evocation of the themes and characters of To the Lighthouse (1927). When Woolf started working on her fifth novel (which E.M. Forster called ‘a novel in sonata form’) she had not visited Skye, where it is set. And when she did visit, her response to the folk music she heard was ambivalent: Woolf was suspicious of nationalist music, whether Scottish or English, and the novel sets allusions to folk song against metropolitan, cosmopolitan works from music halls. Nonetheless, Woolf’s novels celebrate the communal, accessible but historically embedded qualities of folk music. In To the Lighthouse, Woolf alludes to folk songs, such as the ‘cradle song’, to evoke Skye’s history as a site of acute repression by, and repeated resistance to, English forces. The novel suggests extensive parallels between England’s relationship to Skye and England’s exploitive colonial enterprises globally. By starting with the ‘Skye Boat Song’ describing Bonnie Prince Charlie’s flight to Skye after the defeat of Jacobite troops at Cullodon, we hope to suggest how Woolf uses songs that evoke menace and political strife despite their lilting music (this lullaby may be the ‘cradle song’ of which Mrs Ramsay thinks). In the novel, music amplifies the threats beneath the apparent idyll of the Ramsay family’s sojourn in Skye with their guests. The programme continues with arrangements of Scottish folk songs and compositions by Scottish composers intended to reflect on the novel’s subjects and characters. Knotts’ work responds to The Waves, Woolf’s later novel in which, like To the Lighthouse, the seascape and various kinds of rhythm (oceanic, natural, bodily, lexical) are central. Readings from the novel follow a loosely chronological order and are taken from its three sections: ‘The Window’, set during a September evening before World War 1; ‘Time Passes’, the brief ‘corridor’ describing the empty house and covering ten years including the war; and ‘The Lighthouse’, set during a September morning. Emma Sutton & Lana Bode, Directors, ‘Virginia Woolf & Music’ PROGRAMME The concert will be recorded. Please silence phones and reserve applause until the end. ‘Skye Boat Song’ Traditional Reading: from ‘The Window’, chapter 1 (first view of the Lighthouse) Reading: from ‘The Window’, chapter 1 (The opening of the novel) A Suite o’ Bairnsangs Thea Musgrave ‘The Man-in-the Mune’; ‘Daffins’; ‘Willie Wabster’; ‘A Bairn’s Prayer at Nicht’; ‘The Gean’ Reading: from ‘The Window’, chapter 12 (Mr and Mrs Ramsay) ‘O That I’d Ne’er Been Married’ Benjamin Britten Reading: from ‘The Window’, chapter 9 (Lily Briscoe, the painter) ‘O Can Ye Sew Cushions’ Benjamin Britten Reading: from ‘Time Passes’, chapter 6 (First World War) ‘Bonnie James Campbell’, from Scotch Minstrelsy Judith Weir Reading: from ‘Time Passes’, chapter 2 (The empty house) ‘Lady Isobel and the Elf Knight’, from Scotch Minstrelsy Judith Weir Reading: from ‘Time Passes’, chapter 3 (Mrs Ramsay’s death) ‘The Braes of Yarrow’, from Scotch Minstrelsy Judith Weir Reading: from ‘The Window’, chapter 4 (William Bankes and Lily Briscoe) ‘…And Fall and Rise, and Fall and Rise Again...’ David Knotts Reading: from ‘The Lighthouse’, chapter 8 (James Ramsay) Reading: from ‘The Lighthouse’, chapter 5 (Lily’s grief) ‘There’s None to Soothe’ Benjamin Britten Reading: from ‘Time Passes’, chapter 10 (The return to the house ten years’ on) ‘Ca’ the Yowes’ Benjamin Britten Reading: from ‘The Lighthouse’, chapter 13 (End of the novel) ‘Skye Boat Song’ Traditional TEXTS & PROGRAMME NOTES Skye Boat Song Traditional. Text: Sir Harold Boulton, c. 1870 This air was collected in the 1870s by Anne Campbelle MacLeod and first published in Songs of the North (1884), edited by MacLeod and Boulton. It is collected in many miscellanies and was first recorded in 1899. Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing, Onward! the sailors cry; Carry the lad that’s born to be King Over the sea to Skye. Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar, Thunderclouds rend the air; Baffled, our foes stand by the shore, Follow they will not dare. Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep, Ocean’s a royal bed. Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep Watch by your weary head. Many’s the lad fought on that day, Well the Claymore could wield, When the night came, silently lay Dead on Culloden’s field. Burned are their homes, exile and death Scatter the loyal men; Yet ere the sword cool in the sheath Charlie will come again. A Suite O’ Bairnsangs (Thea Musgrave) Text: Maurice Lindsay, English Version by Maurice Lindsay A Suite o’ Bairnsangs was commissioned for the Scottish Festival, Braemar, in 1953. The poem ‘Willie Wabster’ is taken from The Exiled Heart (1957), by the poet, broadcaster and editor Maurice Lindsay, described by Edwin Muir as ‘the voice of young Scotland’. The other poems are taken from Lindsay’s At the Wood's Edge (1950). ‘The Man-in-the Mune’ The man-in-the-mune’s cleik-i-the-back An he wullna come oot tae play. He sits by himsel on a shimmer o heaven, An hears whit the starnies say, But his cheeks gae black, he purls his broo, an his auld heid shaks wi’ rage, Thru the reengan clouds that jostle the yirth, whan God’s on the rampage. ‘The Man in the Moon’ The man in the moon’s got a crick in his back So he will not come out to play. He sits by himself on a shimmer* of heaven, And hears what the stars say, But his cheecks go black, he furls his brow, and his old head shakes with rage, Through the bustling clouds that jostle the earth, when Gods on the rampage. *shimmer = crossbar ‘Daffins’ The wind that blew yestreen, Gar’t trees aa rear their heids, An warssle i the dark as gin it socht tae steal their cleeds. It maun hae shogged the sun Birlan abune the warld, For off his flaman fiery baa, A few bricht gairs it harled Syne drapt them roun’ the ruits o ilk forfochen tree. Cool lauchan pools o yalla licht daffins maist blyth tae see. ‘Daffodils’ The wind that blew last night, made trees rear up their heads, And wrestle as it tried to steal the clothes from off their beds. It must have shaken the sun Birling around the world, For off his flaming fiery ball A few bright sparks it hurled And dropp’d them round the roots of ev’ry breathless tree. Cool laughing pools of yellow light Daffins most fair to see. ‘Willie Wabster’ Hae ye seen Willie Wabster? He’s weilkennt frae Scrabster tae yont the siller Tweed. He scarts his fingers owre the lift, An sets the starns a shoggin: When thunnercloods’ll haurdly drift, He gies ilk yin ajoggin. An when the mune offends his sicht, He coosts it owre his shouther; An while’s tae snuff the sun’s gowd light His winds begin tae fluther. He gars come dingan on the toun, the raindraps oot o heaven, Draps frae his pooch an dangles doun in bauns, the colours seven. Sma wunnder that I’m aften scared, for I’m no certain whether He’s God himself, the warld’s ae laird Or jist his clerk-o-wether. ‘Willie Webster’ Have you seen Willie Webster? He’s well known from Scrabster South to the silver Tweed. He runs his fingers through the sky To keep the stars a moving: When thunder clouds go slowly by, He gives them each a shoving. And when the moon offends his sight, He casts it o’er his shoulder; And so’s to snuff the sun’s bright light His winds go swaggering bolder. He makes the raindrops out of heav’n come driving on the town In ribbons, all the colours seven, He drops and dangles down. Small wonder that I’m often scared, for I’m not certain whether He’s God, the Landlord of the world Or just his clerk of weather. ‘A Bairn’s Prayer at Nicht’ The starns crack the lift tae let licht in. Sae please may the holes let oot my sin. ‘A Child’s Prayer at Night’ The stars crack the sky to let light in. So please may the holes let out my sin. ‘The Gean’ Aa the trees are dansan wi the winds of Spring Ilka green leaf glancan in a hielan fling. Abies thunder geantree sae leddylik and prood Tosht up for aa the lave tae see wi tossils o a clood. ‘The Cherry Tree’ All the trees are dancing with the winds of Spring Ev’ry green leaf glancing in a highland fling. Except for yonder cherrytree so ladylike and proud Dressed up for all the rest to see with tassels of a cloud.