Love Lives Beyond the Tomb Through These Pale Cold Days Op. 46 Songs and Song Cycles Song Cycle for Tenor, Viola and Piano

IAN VENABLES t The Send-Off (Owen) [5.33] y Procrastination (St. Vincent Morris) [4.27] u Through these pale cold days (Rosenberg) [5.22] i Suicide in the Trenches (Sassoon) [2.38] Six Songs for Soprano and Piano o If You Forget (Studdert Kennedy) [4.29]

1 The Way Through Op. 33 No. 1 (Andrews) [3.14] Total timings: [78.42] 2 Aurelia Op. 37 No. 3 (Nichols) [3.19] 3 Chamber Music III Op. 41 No. 6 (Joyce) [4.49] 4 Love lives beyond the tomb Op. 37 No. 1 (Clare) [4.21] MARY BEVAN SOPRANO • ALLAN CLAYTON TENOR 5 Op. 33 No. 2 (Thomas) [5.44] It Rains CARDUCCI STRING QUARTET 6 I caught the changes of the year Op. 45 No. 1 (Drinkwater) [3.53] MATTHEW DENTON VIOLIN • MICHELLE FLEMING VIOLIN EOIN SCHMIDT-MARTIN VIOLA Remember This Op. 40 (Motion) EMMA DENTON CELLO Cantata for Soprano, Tenor, String Quartet and Piano GRAHAM J. LLOYD PIANO

7 Think of the failing body [3.35] www.signumrecords.com 8 In the swirl of its pool [2.40] 9 Think of the flower-lit coffin [4.35] 0 In the grip of their season [3.32] The songs and song cycles on this disc represent and highly acclaimed Requiem – Ian Venables q Think of the standard and its blaze [4.27] the most recent works written by a composer, has written over eighty works in this genre; w On the crest of their Downs [2.42] who has been described by Robert Matthew- his eight substantial song-cycles – many e Think of the buried body laid [4.58] Walker in the magazine Musical Opinion as of which include a string quartet or solo r In the eyes of our minds [4.20] ‘Britain’s finest composer of art songs’. Apart instrument – adding significantly to the from chamber, piano and choral music – the chamber-cycle repertoire. latter of which includes a newly composed

- 3 - As the present title suggests, the works on the poet evokes a Frostian landscape, where a impassioned as the central climax is reached the second half: numbers XX; XXII; XXXII; XXXIV this disc are predominantly reflective in mood desire to ‘revisit’ the past, seems only possible on the words ‘Tender as my heart is tender’ and XXXVI. Ian Venables chose to set number although this does not preclude the use of ‘in dreams’. Venables, a master of mood and which then dissolves into the music of the III after being offered a commission from faster-moving music whenever the poetry word painting, conjures up this dream-like opening stanza. Nichols begins the second a close American friend, the artist Margaret requires it. Its subject matter celebrates the atmosphere with a limpid piano accompaniment with an equally beautiful line, which balances Atkinson, who asked for a work to celebrate timelessness of love through the poetry of which underpins the vocal narrative; the the two lovers’ feelings ‘When within your arms her own longstanding friendship with Mary James Joyce, John Drinkwater, Edward Thomas, prevailing Aeolian modality adding to the sense you hold me / And kisses speak your love DeLong and Jamie Riotto. Chamber Music III John Clare, Robert Nichols and the modern of nostalgia. On the word ‘dreams’, the music, unspoken’. Although the music is similar in is a fine example, out of many, of Ian Venables’ poet Jennifer Andrews; the celebration and now tinged with a hint of chromaticism, sound and mood, the higher pitch adds to ability to create an extended, through-composed commemoration of Queen Elizabeth, The Queen evanesces with mesmerising beauty as it the intense poignancy of the moment as it structure whilst capturing and enhancing Mother, in Sir Andrew Motion’s remarkable moves towards a passionate outpouring as the moves towards its final lines ‘Then my eyes in music a poem’s constantly shifting moods; narrative poem Remember This and the protagonist looks ‘through to limitless summer’. with tears run over, And my very heart is something essential to a successful art song. collective remembrance of those who died in However, this ardency is short-lived as the broken.’, the piano’s brief postlude ending the The ‘chiming’ of midnight sets the scene, the First World War: the poetry of Wilfred Owen, realisation is, that even ‘in dreams’, one does work in a mood of restrained optimism. ‘At that hour when all things have repose’ Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Geoffrey not always find ultimate fulfilment, the return and when, accompanied by sensual chords, Studdert Kennedy and the less well-known to the opening music adding aural significance One might not necessarily think of James Joyce we are asked ‘Do you hear the night wind Francis St. Vincent Morris providing the impetus to this point. The work is dedicated to fellow as the obvious choice for a composer to set, and the sighs / Of harps playing unto / Love for one of Ian Venables’ most dramatic and composer and friend, Richard Sisson. given the often prolix style of his prose. to unclose the pale gates of sunrise?’’. Here, profoundly moving cycles. However his first book of poetry Chamber Venables’ mastery of word painting coming Venables was commissioned in 2016 to write Music, consisting of 36 love poems, came to to the fore, where, on the word ‘gates’, an The opening six songs were composed a work for Gina Wilson to present to her the attention of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound unexpected modulation to G sharp minor specifically for soprano, which is a significant husband John on his 75th birthday. He chose when it was written in 1907, the latter literally, but aurally, opens the ‘gates of but welcome departure for a composer who has to set the short lyric poem Aurelia from Robert commenting that “the quality and distinction sunrise’. For the remainder of this song, written primarily for the male voice. Nichols’ collection Aurelia and Other Poems of the poems in the first half … is due in part plangent chords have now given way to which was published in 1920. The syncopated to their author’s strict musical training … the a slow-moving, semiquaver accompaniment, The first,The Way Through was written in piano introduction sets the scene for the wording is Elizabethan, the metres at times but in sumptuous dialogue with the vocal line. 1999 for Susan Anne Jenkins and Jennifer beautiful opening line ‘When within my arms suggesting Herrick.” It is worth noting that Here, the opening question – now with the Partridge, who gave the premiere in that year. I hold you, motionless’ which is supported by the American composer Samuel Barber set important addition of the word ‘alone’: In Jennifer Andrews’ poem of the same title, plangent chords. These become slightly more five poems from Joyce’s collection, but from ‘Do you alone awake to hear the sweet harps

- 4 - - 5 - play’ is asked once more. An exotic and sensual opening lines ‘Love lives beyond / The tomb, very different musical ideas: one that is chords. In the more impassioned middle harmonic language accompanies an equally the earth which fades like dew. I love the sensual and the other up-lifting. A backdrop section the rhythmic and harmonic movement sensual vocal line and leads us to the climax fond / The faithful and the true’, which are of soft summer rain is evoked through the use quickens, adding to Drinkwater’s more emphatic on ‘Play on invisible harps, unto love / Whose supported by sepulchral chords. The lightness of a rich harmonic sound-world that sustains assertion that ‘And here some sound of way in heaven is aglow’. The poem’s final of the central section, where Clare reflects on a heady mood in which the vocal narrative beauty, here / Some note of ancient, ageless lines ‘At that hour when soft lights come and where, in nature, love can be ‘seen’, is mirrored recalls a past moment of intense passion. This wrong / Reshaping as my lips were strong.’ go / Soft sweet music in the air above and in a yet more playful piano accompaniment, nostalgic recollection by the poet, is transformed An exact restatement of the opening stanza in the earth below.’ are now firmly rooted in where right hand arabesques enhance the into a vision of self-renewal. Musically this brings with it felicitous variation; the words the Aeolian mode, where the melodic and bucolic scene. A return to the opening is achieved by two brief passages that are and music now intoned with increased harmonic simplicity of the music allows for music is now tinged with a more nostalgic harmonically tonal and affirmative in character. profundity, having inevitably been affected a calming and reflective coda to Joyce’s hue as Clare repeats the first line. Even the The vocal narrative continues as the song by what has gone before. moving narrative. instrumental introduction, now acting as the seeks to find a synthesis between the sensual song’s postlude seems less joyful as a result and the affirmatory. This necessary resolution The song was commissioned as a wedding gift The composer and present writer had the of what has gone before: the music here is achieved in the concluding vocal climax on by Patrick Aydon – a dear friend and champion privilege of knowing Lady Gertrude Bliss, the reflecting that whilst ‘Love lives beyond the the words ‘the past hovering as it revisits of Ian Venables’ music – for his wife Kate, to widow of Sir Arthur Bliss. Having already tomb’ the spectre of loss is perhaps not that the light.’, where a brief echo of the opening whom the work is also dedicated. written the song Flying Crooked for her, she far away. mood is replaced by a triumphant restatement Notes by Graham J Lloyd then asked Ian Venables to write a song in of the second, life-affirming idea. celebration of her 100th birthday in 2004. In choosing Edward Thomas’s poem It Rains, For this, it was Lady Bliss herself who chose Ian Venables has written one of his longest The final song in this group,I caught the Sometimes one’s creative life can take an her favourite poem Love lives beyond the tomb and most sensual songs. The theme of rain changes of the year – is a setting of the first unexpected turn and meeting the former by John Clare. In this beautiful evocation of has featured strongly for both poet and poem from John Drinkwater’s Roundels of Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion proved to be love, as seen through and in nature, Lady Bliss composer; the former in one of his most famous the Year, with its evocative opening lines such a moment. We were first introduced is reflecting on her own love for her husband. poems, Rain and the latter most notably, in ‘I caught the changes of the year / In soft following a talk he gave at the Ledbury his settings of Ivor Gurney’s Soft Rain: ‘Soft and fragile nets of song / For you to whom Poetry Festival in 2004. One of the topics we A playful piano introduction, with modally rain beats upon my window, hardly harming’ my days belong.’ Here, the beauty and discussed on that occasion was his interest inflected harmonies and Siciliano-like rhythms and Edna St Vincent Millay’s At Midnight: ‘and fragility of love are deftly wrought from the in writing ‘words for music’. He said that he transports us into the past. An unexpected the rain is full of ghosts tonight that tap and simplest of musical materials, and a melody of found this kind of creative collaboration shift from D major to D minor heralds the sigh upon the glass’. The song contrasts two limpid innocence is supported by delicate very satisfying and so it did not take long

- 6 - - 7 - for our conversation to lead to a tentative the Queen Mother’s life. I gave Remember ‘what is means to be set free from self, poem provides the cycle with a fast moving proposal that we might work together. Sadly, This the subtitle ‘Cantata’ for the reason that from sense, from history’. This scene segues Scherzo movement. This highly-charged poem fate intervened and due to a serious illness the earliest secular cantatas of the 17th century into the poem’s second section. Here, a fleeting depicts race-horses being put through their I was not able to take this project any further. were often written for solo voice with ‘minimal’ memory from the Queen Mother’s life provides paces, ‘On the crest of their downs with However, despite this setback, I was still instrumental accompaniment; its length also the basis for a contrasting poem whose galloping sunlight / the horses in their training very keen to read his poetry in the hope necessitating a broader title than just ‘song subject matter concerns the creation of new know in their bones nothing but racing’. that I might discover a suitable text to set. cycle’. An unusual feature of Remember This life, as symbolised by a salmon returning to Once again the poet uses the scene to As is often the case I find that the visual is that each narrative section is heralded the place of its birth in order to spawn: comment upon the deterministic nature of impact of a poem, as it appears on the page, by a short four-note motif that is first heard ‘In the swirl of its pool the home coming the natural world. However, this fleeting moment can be so compelling that I do wonder whether on the piano in the instrumental introduction. salmon has no intuition of anything changed’. of joie de vivre is short-lived, as we are I chose the poem or whether it chooses me. This ‘aural signpost’ opens each of the The third narrative, beginning with the plunged back into the sombre narrative and Motion’s powerful poem Remember This four sections, beginning with the words words ‘Think of the flower-lit coffin’ describes to the scene at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. most definitely chose me! The instant I read it ‘Think of’. All eight sections segue into the The Queen Mother lying in state and the Here, the poet prompts us to contemplate upon I knew that it had what I refer to as ‘hidden next, either immediately or with the shortest thousands of people who came to pay their ‘the buried body laid inside its final earthly music’ lying beneath the surface of the words. of written-out breaks and despite the respects to her. The poet observes that while shade’. In the final section of Remember Furthermore, the poem’s elegiac narrative, linking motifs, each section inhabits its own the mourners were ‘honouring a time that This, the poet appraises the Queen Mother’s striking visual imagery and imaginative sound-world. Perhaps the most unconventional simply as a fact of time could only end’, they life in an historical context; a life that spanned structure provided me with a wellspring of feature of the cycle is that I have set the title were also acknowledging that ‘also must our a whole century and one that defined an musical possibilities. of the poem. own lives turn from dust to dust’. The fourth important period in our island’s history. For section is a poem ostensively about Trees. this summative moment I bring both voices Remember This was written in memory of Following a brief introduction, where both Here, nature’s recurring cycle of death and together. The music begins in an anticipatory Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother in 2002. voices are heard intoning the words ‘Remember rebirth stands in marked contrast to humanity’s mood, building slowly to a powerfully expressive It comprises eight sections, four of which are This’, the tenor sings a poignant cantilena temporal drama: ‘In the grip of their season climax which incorporates ideas from the interleaved with a narrative that recounts the that depicts the Queen Mother’s last hours: the sky-scraping trees continue their business first two movements before dying away to a Queen Mother’s final journey from death, to ‘Think of the failing body now awake in its of plumping up buds’. This life-affirming valedictory coda that too reprises previous lying in state, her funeral and ultimately her final hours’. This sombre mood is heightened poem leads directly into the fifth narrative, musical ideas, but this time presented burial. Between each narrative section there by the use of harmonics heard on both violins, depicting the scene of the state funeral tenderly and tinged with nostalgia. As the is a free-standing sonnet, whose subject which evoke a disembodied sound-world. The procession: ‘as now the coffin glides music moves towards its final bars, the focusses upon a specific interest or aspect of poet invites the reader to contemplate upon through London’s traffic-parted day’. The sixth listener is not only urged to remember the

- 8 - - 9 - Queen Mother but also to reflect upon their Finally, there was the commission itself from manner, to become an accomplice at the poem of the same title, is by a lesser-known own life’s journey. Remember This was the Limoges Trust whose generous support ‘send-off’ – ‘Dull porters watched them, and war poet, Francis St. Vincent Morris, who commissioned with the generous support of helped to bring this work to fruition. a casual tramp / stood staring hard’. This was born in 1896 in Ashbourne, Derbyshire. In Mr Andrew Milner and the Limoges Trust. passage’s eerie and intimate atmosphere is 1910, he went to Brighton College and Notes by Ian Venables As ever with a song-cycle, the task of finding further heightened by the viola’s absence. subsequently gained a place to study at Oxford suitable texts can often take as long as the in 1915. In that same year he joined the compositional process itself. Whist the vast A quasi-recitative follows at the words, ‘We army and became a Second Lieutenant in the As the preparations for the centenary majority of WWI poetry tended to focus upon never heard to which front these were sent’ 3rd Battalion of the Sherwood Foresters. The commemorations of the Great War gathered the experience of army life and the brutality and leads to a vocal climax. Here, the poet following year he transferred to the Royal pace in 2013, Ian Venables began to think of trench-warfare, Venables’ cycle explores expresses his distain at the women who, with Flying Corps and in the spring of 1917 he about how he might add his own tribute to war from a more generalised perspective, flowers in their hands, greet the soldiers as crossed into France where, on April 10th, his the many creative projects that were being dealing with ‘themes’ that might have they arrive: Owen believing that these flowers plane was brought down by a blizzard at planned. As ever, the impetus to compose resonance for a contemporary audience. These would be exchanged for ‘wreath and spray’. Vimy Ridge: he died from his injuries just over came from a number of oblique sources. ‘themes’ touch upon the universality of loss, In the final stanza, beginning at the line two weeks later. Firstly, living close to Gheluvelt Memorial Park love, and personal identity and as a result ‘Shall they return to beatings of great bells in Worcester, Venables was inspired by the lift the poetry out of the arena of war and bring / in wild train-loads’ the opening march Procrastination addresses the subject of Love: Worcestershire Regiment, whose self-sacrifice it within the compass of personal experience. theme makes an heroic return, accompanied love sought, felt and then lost. It echoes the prevented the German army from breaking by ‘bell-like’ arabesques in the piano. This tragic circumstances of those who were caught through the allied lines in the early months Wilfred Owen’s poem The Send-Off “hit” section builds to a passionate vocal outpouring up in the conflict and who, like St. Vincent of the war. According to Sir Winston the composer with such emotional force that on the line, ‘A few, a few, too few for drums Morris, would be denied such love. The Churchill, this momentous act of bravery he said he felt compelled to set it. Indeed, and yells’. The song ends with the heroic song begins with a brief introduction that changed the whole course of the conflict and the opening line, ‘Down the close darkening march rhythm which has now been recast as evokes the distant sound of a military band. it is fitting thatThrough These Pale Cold lanes they sang their way to the siding-shed’, a slow funeral march – a ghostly cortege The poet, alone in a sequestered wood, hears Days is dedicated to their memory. Secondly, contains within it a strong musical rhythm to accompany those soldiers who ‘May ‘A sweet wind’ that ‘moaned in the shadows Venables has had a long association with the that is highly suggestive of an army on the creep back, silent, to still village wells / up above, and it seemed as the voice of Love’. Worcester Royal Grammar School, where he march! This opening song is ‘through composed’ half-known roads.’ This tranquil scene is reflected in the music taught for over 20 years. In 1914 it was the and follows closely the poem’s verse structure by a gentle ‘rocking figure’ heard in the City’s principal grammar school, and by the of four, five-line stanzas. In the second, the By contrast, the second song, Procrastination piano accompaniment. At the end of the first end of the war ninety of its boys had perished. poet enlists the reader, in an almost voyeuristic provides the cycle with a lyrical interlude. The stanza there is a lengthy bridge passage in

- 10 - - 11 - which the piano’s introductory music returns, history of persecution. The poem presents a and impassioned as it moves towards the and emotionally wrought poem I have ever set but now acting as an elegiac commentary dream-like narrative; one where he can all-important line ‘For the pools of Herbron to music. Sassoon deals with one of the most upon the poem’s wistful narrative. In the imagine himself communing with the ghosts of again’. A dialogue between the voice and viola horrific aspects of the War – the needless second stanza we are told that after a season, his ancestors. The author, Timothy Kendall ensues as both instruments reprise fragments death of a young soldier, who, suffering from the poet returned to the forest and discovered has written, “Rosenberg, in those pale cold of the Klezmer music heard in the introduction. severe psychological distress, depression and that the ‘trees were felled and the voices days, is briefly at one with his ghosts; he sees Following this climax, the music subsides fear, is driven to suicide by the harsh conditions had passed from the whispering wood’. A with living eyes for them; they are dead and and returns to the song’s plaintive opening in the trenches. For the army’s leaders, reprise of the opening ‘rocking figure’ through him, alive. However, their visit is material, in preparation for the final lines,‘They however, suicide was viewed as a cowardly act sustains a peaceful mood as the vocal line necessarily short; with new understanding of leave these blond still days / in dust behind and Sassoon’s poem was attacked for its weaves its way towards its final climax on the the future, they turn away to resume their their tread’ and its denouement, ‘They see with anti-war sentiment and unpatriotic stance.” words ‘whispering wood’. Here the viola takes search for the lost Edenic home. The poet is living eyes / how long they have been dead’. up the principal melody from the introduction, left behind, abandoned even by his own people”. On the word ‘long’, the sinuous vocal line The poem relates the story of a youthful but but it now becomes increasingly dominated elicits a melisma that acts as a musical naïve recruit, who like so many others, were totally by the insistent ‘drumming’ rhythm alluded The song opens with a slow introduction for metaphor for the passing of time. The song inexperienced in dealing with the harshness to earlier. Overpowered, the viola intones the viola and piano, where the viola’s sorrowful ends with a short coda for viola and piano, of trench warfare. The song follows closely same rhythmic figure, ending the song on a melody is accompanied by claustrophobic where echoes of melodic fragments from the the poem’s Ballad-like contours with note of gloom. repetitions of a minor 6th interval in the piano, introduction are heard, but now punctuated correspondingly energetic and spirited rhythms the latter creating a discomforting harmonic by a succession of discordant and strident acting as a rustic backdrop to the simple, The cycle’s title-song Through These Pale ambiguity to the work’s prevailing tonality. chords in the piano; this section providing carefree and Folk-like melody. The optimistic Cold Days is a setting of Isaac Rosenberg’s The viola’s threnodic idea contains echoes of one of the bleakest moments in the cycle. key of D major with added Lydian inflections, final poem, written three days before his death Jewish Klezmer music that is intended to sustains the cheerful mood of this stanza, on the 1st April 1918. Rosenberg had a evoke a ‘sense of place’. The voice enters The penultimate song – a setting of Siegfried ‘I knew a simple soldier boy who grinned at desperately unhappy time in the army where quietly with the opening line ‘Through these Sassoon’s poem Suicide in the Trenches – life in empty joy’, but ‘Spring’s’ lightness anti-semitism was rife. He was persistently pale cold days’ leading to a brief climax on provides the work with a mock-scherzo is suddenly obliterated by the ‘Winter’ bullied for being a Jew and in a letter to his the words, ‘thousand years’. A restatement of movement. However, the subject matter of darkness of the second verse. Here, we are friend Sydney Schiff, he wrote, ‘my being a the opening vocal melody is now heard in the the poem does not bring any relief from the plunged into the horrors of the trenches – the Jew makes it bad among these wretches’. piano and this begins a new section at the stark realism of the work’s overall narrative. devastation and exploding bombs (crumps), the Despite this, he found solace in his Jewishness line, ‘And their wild eyes yearn’. Gradually, The composer expressed to the present writer ‘lice’ and ‘lack of rum’. Then we are told that and in an identification with his religion’s long the music becomes increasingly restless that “…indeed, this was the most difficult Sassoon’s young soldier ‘put a bullet through

- 12 - - 13 - his brain / no one spoke of him again’. For introspective. Initially heard quietly and at a was the vicar of St. Paul’s Church, Worcester. moving theme intones the words ‘I am weary this harrowing stanza, the music descends slower tempo, but quickly moving to a faster At the outbreak of the war he volunteered as of remembrance / and my brow is ever wet / momentarily into a minor key; the underlying tempo, the last verse revisits momentarily the an Army chaplain and became attached to a with the tears of my remembrance’. Here, the rhythmic figure now becoming so insistent that song’s opening jaunty vocal line, but cleverly this bayonet-training service. He became one of elegiac piano accompaniment – with its simple its repetition becomes almost unbearable (the mock optimism becomes increasingly unstable the most well-known figures on the Western 4/4 crotchet tread – adds to the music’s viola’s use of a col legno – where the wood as material from the harrowing central section Front, as a result of giving Woodbine cigarettes profundity: it is as if the march of the opening of the bow is hit against the instrument’s attempts to dominate. By the time we reach and spiritual comfort to the soldiers. He was song of the cycle has returned, but now as a strings – adding to the menace). The trenchant the final line ‘the hell where youth and laughter loved and respected by his comrades for his ghostly ‘march for the dead’. After a reprise vocal line, beginning at the words ‘In winter go’ – at which point the violent music from bravery under fire and he received the Military of the opening lament, the final lines are trenches’, becomes more agitated and angry the central stanza has taken control – the Cross in 1917 at Messines Ridge for running sung, ‘Then your children must remember/ as it reaches a violent climax. As if not enough, music once again disintegrating into the earlier into No-Mans-Land to rescue the injured. After and their brow be ever wet, with the tears of the music’s tonality effectively disintegrates, cataclysmic chords. However this time there the war, he became closely involved in the their remembrance / with the tears and bloody acting as a metaphor for the harrowing state of are three – the final one functioning as a Christian Socialist and the Pacifist movements, sweat’, but this time the viola adds a poignant mind the distressed soldier must have reached bridge that links the song with the final poem touring the country giving public lectures. He counter subject of unaffected simplicity as before he ‘put a bullet through his brain’. This of remembrance. The composer expressed that died suddenly in 1929, whilst on tour in it moves towards the cycle’s contemplative powerful moment is sustained through to the “…when I was composing Suicide in the Liverpool. A crowd of over 2,000 people turned conclusion. In changing the pronoun to ‘If line, ‘no one spoke of him again’, as the piano Trenches I felt that I could not end it with the out for his funeral procession, lining the You Forget’, Studdert Kennedy has included thunders down the keyboard, ultimately arriving usual musical ‘full stop’; the poem’s emotional streets from Worcester Cathedral to St Paul’s ‘us’ in the act of remembrance. He is making on two cataclysmic chords. On the second, effect was simply too overwhelming: the Church a mile away. They threw packets of an impassioned appeal to posterity and by marked sffffz the pianist is directed to maintain music required space but not silence. To Woodbines onto the passing cortege. reiterating the words, ‘If You Forget’, we are the sound until it dies away to the point of achieve this, it segues without a break into forced not only to reflect upon the sacrifice of temporal unease: it is as if the horror of what the final song; something I have never felt Studdert Kennedy’s collected verse was published those who gave their lives for the world we has occurred has induced shock not only in the need to do in any of my previous cycles.” in 1927 under the title The Unutterable Beauty. have inherited, but also to remember what is the narrative but for the musicians performing The long, sustained chord from the previous at stake if future generations fail in their duty. it, and that is certainly what the present writer In setting Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy’s song now provides a spectral backdrop as the The bleakness and unsettling nature of the felt when recording the work. Following this, poem If You Forget as the final song, the piano’s tolling, bell-like figure ‘calls us’ to cycle’s final bars seek to mirror the unresolved the opening piano introduction is reprised, narrative of the whole cycle reaches its remembrance. After the voice’s quietly anguished tension that underlies all acts of remembrance. but his time a semitone lower and with the inevitable conclusion. Studdert Kennedy, or and yearning lament on the words, ‘Let me Notes by Graham J Lloyd earlier ‘flippant’ optimism now dispiriting and ‘Woodbine Willie’ as he was affectionately named forget / let me forget’, a disconsolate but deeply

- 14 - - 15 - TEXTS 2 Aurelia Op. 37 No. 3 Play on, invisible harps, unto Love, And where is voice, Robert Nichols (1893-1944) Whose way in heaven is aglow So young, and beautifully sweet Six Songs for Soprano and Piano At that hour when soft lights come and go, As nature’s choice, When within my arms I hold you, Soft sweet music in the air above Where Spring and lovers meet? 1 The Way Through Op. 33 No. 1 Motionless in long surrender, And in the earth below. Jennifer Andrews Then what love words can I summon, Love lives beyond Tender as my heart is tender? 4 Love lives beyond the tomb Op. 37 No. 1 The tomb, the earth, the flowers, and dew. Could I find it again, John Clare (1793-1864) I love the fond, that mossy gate When within your arms you hold me, The faithful, young and true. So nearly overgrown And kisses speak your love unspoken Love lives beyond With crowding grasses Then my eyes with tears run over, The tomb, the earth, which fades like dew— 5 It Rains Op. 33 No. 2 And a high sea of cow parsley faces And my very heart is broken. I love the fond, Edward Thomas (1878-1917) Brushing an arch of leaves, The faithful, and the true Might I find it -? 3 Chamber Music III Op. 41 No. 6 It rains, and nothing stirs within the fence James Joyce (1882-1941) Love lives in sleep, Anywhere through the orchard’s untrodden, dense Never go back, they say, ‘Tis happiness of healthy dreams Forest of parsley. The great diamonds So I will not try At that hour when all things have repose, Eve’s dews may weep, Of rain on the grass blades there is none to break, Except in dreams, to find O lonely watcher of the skies, But love delightful seems. Or the fallen petals further down to shake. Where the hot road forked Do you hear the night wind and the sighs And I am nearly as happy as possible The wheels ran suddenly soft Of harps playing unto Love to unclose ‘Tis seen in flowers, To search the wilderness in vain though well, And we looked through The pale gates of sunrise? And in the even’s pearly dew To think of two walking, kissing there, To limitless summer – On earth’s green hours, Drenched, yet forgetting the kisses of the rain: But did not climb over. When all things repose, do you alone And in the heaven’s eternal blue. Sad, too, to think that never, never again, Awake to hear the sweet harps play The words of ‘The Way Through are reproduced To Love before him on his way, ‘Tis heard in spring by kind permission of Jennifer Andrews Unless alone, so happy shall I walk And the night wind answering in antiphon When light and sunbeams, warm and kind, In the rain. When I turn away, on its fine stalk Till night is overgone? On angels’ wing Twilight has fined to naught, the parsley flower Bring love and music to the wind. Figures, suspended still and ghostly white, The past hovering as it revisits the light.

- 16 - - 17 - 6 I caught the changes of the year Op. 45 No. 1 across a bedroom wall then goes, and delve inside our heads, and find and we, who estimate our loss John Drinkwater (1883-1937) are not the things this body knows, the harsh insistence in our mind in ways particular to us,

I caught the changes of the year held in a trance of fading light which says we’re honouring a time can start to understand that here In soft and fragile nets of song before that dies, and gives the sight that simply as a fact of time we see our future coming clear – For you to whom my days belong of what it means to be set free could only end, as also must our selves the same yet also changed, For you to whom each day is dear from self, from sense, from history. our own lives turn from dust to dust. and questioning, and re-arranged. Of all the high processional throngs I caught the changes of the year 8 In the swirl of its pool 0 In the grip of their season w On the crest of their Downs In soft and fragile nets of song the home-coming salmon the sky-scraping trees with galloping sunlight has no intuition continue their business the horses in training And here some sound of beauty, here of anything changed, of plumping up buds know in their bones Some note of ancient, ageless wrong just that the silver without an idea nothing but racing, Reshaping as my lips were strong, cord of its current of what it might mean so all they can manage is clear water running, so long as leaves shoot today is the beauty I caught the changes of the year the lid of its sky in the polishing breeze, of sprinting and spurting In soft and fragile nets of song. light soaking through light, so long as leaves fall, mud-moons behind them, For you to whom my days belong. without any shadows so long as the burden the draggle of mufti of faces or lines of sunlight and dark wind-burning to silk, Remember This Op. 40 to splinter its path, rolls round its O the unbuttoned gasp Sir Andrew Motion (b.1952) and pull out of true without changing its plan of pleasure and longing the course of its mind. or resting its weight. at what might be won. 7 Think of the failing body now awake in its final hours although 9 Think of the flower-lit coffin set q Think of the standard and its blaze e Think of the buried body laid in vaulted public space, in state, the tightened focus of our gaze, inside its final earthly shade, the fizz and scythe of city wheels, the pigeon-purrs, the way light steals so we who never knew you, but as now the coffin glides away in darkness like a solid cloud all half-suspect we knew you, wait, through London’s traffic-parted day where weight and nothing coincide.

- 18 - - 19 - in silence which will never break Through These Pale Cold Days Op. 46 May creep back, silent, to still village wells, They leave these blonde still days unless real angels really speak, Up half-known roads. In dust behind their tread t The Send-Off They see with living eyes while we who wait our turn live on Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) y Procrastination How long they have been dead. re-calculating what has gone – Francis St. Vincent Morris (1896-1917) Down the close darkening lanes they sang their way i Suicide in the Trenches time-tested dignity and pride To the siding-shed, A sweet wind passed in the forest Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) and finished work personified. And lined to the train with faces grimly gay. And moaned in the shadows above, And he heard it sigh through the branches, I knew a simple soldier boy r In the eyes of our minds Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath And it seemed as the voice of Love. Who grinned at life in empty joy, when the country and cities and spray Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, turn back to themselves As men’s are, dead. And he went his way for a season, And whistled early with the lark. this history stays: And came when he deemed it good: the four generations Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp But the trees were felled-and the voices In winter trenches, cowed and glum, which linked with your life Stood staring hard, Had passed from the whispering Wood. With crumps and lice and lack of rum, re-winding their span Sorry to miss them from the Upland camp. He put a bullet through his brain. u to childhood again, Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp Through These Pale Cold Days No one spoke of him again. and seeing you stand Winked at the guard. Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918) at the edge of their days, You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye where if they so wished So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went. Through these pale cold days Who cheer when soldier lads march by, you helped give a shape They were not ours: What dark faces burn Sneak home and pray you’ll never know to slipstreaming time We never heard to which front these were sent; Out of three thousand years, The hell were youth and laughter go. with a wave of your hand. And their wild eyes yearn, Nor there if they yet mock what women meant Suicide in the Trenches by Siegfried Sassoon: The words of ‘Remember This’ are reproduced Who gave them flowers. While underneath their brows Text © Copyright 1918 Siegfried Sassoon. All rights reserved. Reproduced by kind permission. by kind permission of Sir Andrew Motion Like waifs their spirits grope Shall they return to beating of great bells For the pools of Hebron again- In wild train-loads? For Lebanon’s summer slope. A few, and a few, too few for drums and yells,

- 20 - - 21 - o If You Forget IAN VENABLES Beyond the world of art song he has written Music Society, Chairman of the Ivor Gurney Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929) many chamber and choral works that include Society and an Honorary Fellow of Exeter Ian Venables studied composition with Richard a Piano Quintet Op.27 (1995); String Quartet University. His music is published by Novello Let me forget-Let me forget, Arnell at Trinity College of Music, London Op.32 (1989); Awake, awake, the world is and Co (The Wise Music Group) and has been I am weary of remembrance, and later with John Joubert, Andrew Downes young Op.34 (2000) for mezzo-soprano, strings, recorded on the Regent, SOMM, Signum and And my brow is ever wet, and John Mayer at the Royal Birmingham brass, per-cussion and organ; Requiem Op.48 Naxos labels. With tears of my remembrance, Conservatoire. His works encompass many (2019) as well as smaller pieces for solo With the tears and bloody sweat,- genres and he has added significantly to the instruments and piano. For further information about his music Let me forget canon of English art song. please visit www.ianvenables.com or Ian Venables is President of the Arthur Bliss www.wisemusicclassical.com If you forget – if you forget, Described as ‘Britain’s greatest living composer Society, a Vice-President of the Gloucester Then your children must remember, of art song’ (Musical Opinion) and ‘a song And their brow be ever wet, composer as fine as Finzi and Gurney’(BBC With the tears of their remembrance, Music Magazine), Ian Venables has written over With the tears and bloody sweat, 80 works in this genre and includes nine If you forget. song-cycles: Venetian Songs – Love’s Voice Op.22 (1995); Invite to Eternity Op.31 (1997) for tenor and string quartet; Songs of Eternity and Sorrow Op.36 (2004) for tenor, string quartet and piano; On the Wings of Love Op.38 (2006) for tenor, clarinet and piano; The Pine Boughs Past Music Op.39 (2009) for baritone and piano; Remember This Op.40 (2011) a Cantata for soprano, tenor, string quartet and piano; The Song of The Severn Op.43 (2013) for baritone, string quartet and piano; Through These Pale Cold Days Op.46 (2016) for tenor, viola and piano and The Last Invocation Op.50. © Graham Wallhead

- 22 - - 23 - MARY BEVAN ALLAN CLAYTON

Mary Bevan enjoys huge success in baroque, Allan Clayton is established as one of the classical, and contemporary repertoire, and most exciting and sought after singers of his appears regularly with leading orchestras generation. He studied at St John’s College, and ensembles around the world. She has Cambridge and at the Royal Academy of Music been awarded an MBE (Member of The Most in London. An Associate of the Royal Academy Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the of Music and former BBC New Generation Queen’s birthday honours list 2019. She is a Artist from 2007-2009, his awards include winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s “The Queen’s Commendation for Excellence”, Young Artist award and UK Critics’ Circle Award a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, the 2018 for Exceptional Young Talent in music. Whatsonstage Award for Excellence in Opera, and the 2018 Royal Philharmonic Society She has performed roles such as Rose Maurrant Singer Award. in Weill’s Street Scene, Zerlina, Susanna, Barbarina, title role in Rossi Orpheus, Bellezza He performs regularly at Glyndebourne Festival Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, Eurydice Opera and the Royal Opera House, Covent Orpheus in the Underworld for opera houses Garden, and also enjoys a close artistic such as Teatro Real, Opéra de Monte-Carlo, relationship with the Komische Oper Berlin Royal Danish Opera, the Royal Opera House, and director Barrie Kosky. Allan garnered huge © Sim Canetty-Clarke Covent Garden, English National Opera, Garsington praise as the lead role in Brett Dean’s Hamlet, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Opera Festival and Adelaide Festival. which had its world premiere at Glyndebourne Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, the London Philharmonic

© Victoria Cadisch in June 2017 conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. Orchestra with Sir Mark Elder, and the Orchestra On the concert platform, she has performed pianist Joseph Middleton and Handel’s Queens, He has also worked at the Teatro Real Madrid, de Teatro alla Scala with Sir John Eliot Gardiner. with the BBC Symphony, BBC Concert Orchestra all on Signum Classics, Mendelssohn songs Opera Comique, Teatro alla Scala, and the at the Proms, CBSO, OAE and AAM, among others. for Champs Hill Records, Vaughan Williams Metropolitan Opera, New York. His recital career has seen him perform at the Symphony No.3 and Schubert Rosamunde with Cheltenham, Perth and Aldeburgh Festivals, Bevan’s recordings include her art song the BBC Philharmonic. Allan has sung with some of the world’s great as well as at LSO St Luke’s in London, the albums The Divine Muse and Voyages with orchestras and conductors, including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and New York Armory.

- 24 - - 25 - CARDUCCI STRING QUARTET was accompanied by a recording of the 4th, 8th, and 11th Quartets to which the Quartet Matthew Denton and Michelle Fleming violins added a further volume in Spring 2019 with Eoin Schmidt-Martin viola a recording of the 1st, 2nd, and 7th Quartets, Emma Denton cello acclaimed by Gramophone Magazine for its “…athletic, upfront performances, clear in Described by The Strad as presenting “a texture, forthright in tone and bold inarticulation”. masterclass in unanimity of musical purpose, in which severity could melt seamlessly into The Carducci Quartet appear at prestigious charm, and drama into geniality”, the award- venues across the globe including the Wigmore winning Carducci Quartet is internationally Hall,London; National Concert Hall, Dublin; Tivoli acclaimed as one of the most accomplished Concert Hall, Copen-hagen; The Frick Collection and versatile ensembles of today. Not only and Carnegie Hall, New York; Library of Congress mastering the core repertoire, the Quartet and John. F Kennedy Center, Washington D.C.; presents a selection of new works each season St Lawrence Center for the Arts, Toronto; and and diversifies further with programmes of Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. Festival residencies film music, pop and rock. include Cheltenham, Ryedale, Lichfield, Presteigne, Kilkenny, Snape Proms, and West Cork. Founded in 1997, the ensemble has won numerous international competitions, including the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, and First Prize at Finland’s Kuhmo International Chamber Music Competition. In 2016, they took home a Royal Philharmonic Society Award for their project, Shostakovich15, an immense cycle of Shostakovich’s Quartets performed across the UK, North, and South America with a marathon one day cycle hosted by Shakespeare’s Globe, London. The project

- 26 - - 27 - GRAHAM J LLOYD The Song of the Severn – with Roderick Williams and the Carducci Quartet – also Graham J Lloyd began his piano studies at the received glowing reviews; ‘Roderick Williams… relatively late age of 14 and only four years enjoys outstandingly sympathetic support later gave his debut recital in Liverpool, in a from Graham J Lloyd (whose pianism is of a performance of Saint-Saens’s Carnival des very high order)…’ (Gramophone). Animaux. He studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester with the He has recently retired from a 30-year teaching Polish pianist Ryszard Bakst and where, as career in order to concentrate on adjudicating, a chamber musician, he was coached by the lecturing, recording, and arranging. late Denis Matthews.

He has worked as a soloist – Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 1; chamber musician – Beethoven Complete Sonatas for Violin and Piano, Schubert Trout Quintet and in particular as an accompanist to many singers. He has specialised in recording the works of his partner Ian Venables. The CD ‘The Songs of Ian Venables’ received much critical acclaim “…the singer is ably supported by pianist Graham Lloyd…” (Gramophone). He has also recorded Venables’ music for strings and piano with members of the Coull Quartet on the SOMM label “…pianist (Graham) Lloyd adding much to the sense of grandeur in the music…” (International Record Review) and the same composer’s complete piano music on the NAXOS label. His Signum disc © Graham Wallhead

- 28 - - 29 - ALSO AVAILABLE on signumclassics

This recording was made with the financial assistance of The Limoges Trust, The Composers Project Trust and Philip Jones.

Recorded in All Saints’ Church, East Finchley, London, UK from 17th to 18th January 2019. Producer & Editor – Mark Brown Recording Engineer – Mike Hatch Recording Assistant – Tom Mungall

Cover Image – © Shutterstock Design and Artwork – Woven Design www.wovendesign.co.uk

P 2020 The copyright in this sound recording is owned by Signum Records Ltd © 2020 The copyright in this CD booklet, notes and design is owned by Signum Records Ltd

Any unauthorised broadcasting, public performance, copying or re-recording of Signum Compact Discs constitutes an infringement of copyright and will render the infringer liable to an action Ian Venables Ian Venables by law. Licences for public performances or broadcasting may be obtained from Phonographic Performance Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this booklet may be reproduced, stored At Midnight The Song of the Severn in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Signum Records Ltd. Andrew Kennedy Roderick Williams | Graham J Lloyd | Carducci String Quartet Dante Quartet SIGCD424 SignumClassics, Signum Records Ltd., Suite 14, 21 Wadsworth Road, Perivale, Middlesex, UB6 7LQ, UK. SIGCD204 +44 (0) 20 8997 4000 E-mail: [email protected] “Williams is in stellar form throughout (his lustrous tone www.signumrecords.com “In the songs themselves, the vocal line seems central, not as in beautifully captured by the microphones), and he enjoys so many modern compositions added to accommodate the text, outstandingly sympathetic support from Graham J. Lloyd and they show a feeling for the singing voice...Andrew Kennedy (whose pianism is of a very high order) and the Carducci does well by them: strong, assured and expressive.” Quartet…No lover of the early-20th-century English art song or Gramophone pastoral tradition should fail to investigate this notable issue.” Gramophone

Available through most record stores and at www.signumrecords.com For more information call +44 (0) 20 8997 4000

- 30 - - 31 - - 20 - CTP Template: CD_INL1 COLOURS Compact Disc Back Inlay CYAN Customer SignumClassics MAGENTA YELLOW Catalogue No.SIGCD617 BLACK Job Title: Love Lives ... SIGNUM CLASSICS

SIGCD617 Love Lives Beyond the Tomb Songs and Song Cycles

IAN VENABLES

Six Songs for Soprano and Piano

1 The Way Through Op. 33 No. 1 (Andrews) [3.14] LOVE LIVES BEYOND THE TOMB IAN VENABLES 2 Aurelia Op. 37 No. 3 (Nichols) [3.19] 3 Chamber Music III Op. 41 No. 6 (Joyce) [4.49] 4 Love lives beyond the tomb Op. 37 No. 1 (Clare) [4.21] 5 It Rains Op. 33 No. 2 (Thomas) [5.44] 6 I caught the changes of the year Op. 45 No. 1 (Drinkwater) [3.53]

7 - r Remember This Op. 40 (Motion) [30.49] Cantata for Soprano, Tenor, String Quartet and Piano

Through These Pale Cold Days Op. 46 Song Cycle for Tenor, Viola and Piano t The Send-Off (Owen) [5.33] y Procrastination (St. Vincent Morris) [4.27] u Through these pale cold days (Rosenberg) [5.22] i Suicide in the Trenches (Sassoon) [2.38] o If You Forget (Studdert Kennedy) [4.29]

Total timings: [78.42] IAN VENABLES LOVE LIVES BEYOND THE TOMB IAN MARY BEVAN SOPRANO ALLAN CLAYTON TENOR

CARDUCCI STRING QUARTET

GRAHAM J. LLOYD PIANO LC15723 Signum Records Ltd, Suite 14, 21 Wadsworth Road, SIGCD617 Perivale, Middlesex UB6 7LQ, United Kingdom. P 2020 Signum Records DDD SIGCD617 © 2020 Signum Records www.signumrecords.com 24 bit digital recording 6 35212 06172 5 SIGNUM CLASSICS