570201bk EU 18/11/07 8:03 pm Page 16 the loved familiar out of focus. scenting the dreams of your sleepers The English Song Series • 17 DDD Where is the longed for grasp, join interlacing of lovers 8.570201 the sound of soothing intonations, to the half-heard rhythm of waves. the sacrament of known flesh? The hound has lost its scent. Drift on the breast of the sea encrust the dim landscape with marble. No baying at this summer moon… Drift on the breast of the sea. hanging bloated over parched grass not even cold regrets ¢ Our Magic Horse ALWYN for the rain’s green turmoil. Where we can find our magic horse to take us our journey among the stars, I try to decypher signs rediscover our pointless toy Mirages to read the ripples on a dying pool that only fools would attempt to ride? to reach fragments of graffiti tossed haphazard in a dusty spiral. Fools like us who could travel far beyond the mirror of our world Nocturnes Hope is a dry seed hidden to reach the valley of fruit and flower under crisp leaves in the gutter warmed by Eden’s changeless sun. One shoot in a shrivelled plant. Slum Song is the only promise we share. You and I could live your dream walk hand in hand in golden corn ™ Spring Rain not wishing to speak, not wishing to take Seascapes The annual miracle of green unfolds but only to merge in a timeless dawn. and each leaf holds its bead of rain then lets it fall only to be renewed again Let us always try to be upside down Invocations to see the wonder of pointless things The polished poplars shimmer and vibrate granting to ride together our magic horse the sky a soft percussive voice and know the truth of its hidden wings. Elin Manahan Thomas, that falls in grey green syllables down to earth. Soprano And through the rain you come like a green ghost to take my hand and whisper in my ear of love and passing time and endlessness. Jeremy Huw Williams, £ Invocation to the Queen of Moonlight Baritone Climb through the spiral of summer dispensing cool essence of light John Turner, Break through the lattice of leaves Treble Recorder sprinkling the grass with your diamonds. Fill the pale air with your perfume Iain Burnside, Piano 8.570201 16 570201bk EU 18/11/07 8:03 pm Page 2 William Alwyn (1905-1985): Songs & Black Gulls our sin was a brilliance that died in our evening. Bird in the sky, white gull, Mirages: A Song Cycle for Baritone and Piano (words by William Alwyn) (1970) black against the blue What did we learn and what did we know? 1 Undine: Allegro ma non troppo sliding across my eyes What became usual and what became strange? 2 Aquarium: Andante sostenuto molto calmato that water from the glare. Our coming together made thoughts that were growing, 3 The Honeysuckle: Moderato con moto A messenger perhaps? our drifting apart an end to their thinking. 4 Metronome: Andante sostenuto Borne on outstretched wings 5 Paradise: Allegro strepitoso soon to melt away ( Holding the Night 6 Portrait in a Mirror: Andante ma con moto and leave the heavens bare. Holding the night in the palm of my hand. Feeling its blackness as the wind Six Nocturnes for Baritone and Piano (words by Michael Armstrong) (1973) Today the placid sea streams to the edge of the gulf 7 Everything is Now: Andante molto sostenuto flows down from the sky, to fall through unknown trees. 8 Summer Rain: Allegro molto e leggiero water combines with air 9 Visitation: Andantino to make a violet haze. This moment has always been ours 0 Summer Night: Con moto – poco agitato when the tips of our fingers touch ! Circle: Lento A frill of bubbled lace enclosing the gift of the hidden moon flutters along the shore floating, floating floating beyond the clouds. @ Response: Tempo comodo and wet sand to the south # Slum Song: Andante piangevole (words by Louis MacNeice) (1947) bursts into a blaze. ) Separation Out in the dark night Seascapes: Four Songs for Soprano, Treble Recorder and Piano Then another gull the birds are asleep (words by Michael Armstrong) (1980) black as the one before and you too are sleeping $ Dawn at Sea: Andante con moto appearing from behind out of my reach to hold my troubled gaze. held only in my thoughts. % Sea-Mist: Moderato ^ Song of the Drowned Man: Andante sostenuto Resting in the wings Of all things in the world & Black Gulls: Allegretto it drifts away from land. I love you most, I love you most A speck above the sea but I cannot get near you Invocations: A Song Cycle (words by Michael Armstrong) (1977) it dies in a violet haze. and you remain unknown. * Through the Centuries: Andante sostenuto ( Holding the Night: Allegro impetuoso Invocations My love is waiting here for you ) Separation: Andantino (poco allegretto) Poems by Michael Armstrong to pick up and wear ¡ Drought: Lento like a warm garment. ™ Spring Rain: Allegretto leggiero * Through the Centuries £ Invocation to the Queen of Moonlight: Lento piacevole Through the centuries I have held your hand At least enclose yourself whispered your name as the wind in the trees within its folds, ¢ Our Magic Horse: Allegro moderato Nothing remembered and nothing forgotten if only, if only, if only to keep out the cold. each time it is different, each time the same. ¡ Drought Our meetings renewed a secret joy These are the days of waiting our farewells destroyed what we understood. when to touch a stone is an act of faith Today was a greeting, tomorrow a parting and your blurred outline hangs in space 8.570201 2 15 8.570201 570201bk EU 18/11/07 8:03 pm Page 14 from out my sin. So near and far... far. William Alwyn (1905-1985): Songs We both will end when we begin. from Collected Poems (Faber) reproduced You loved the broad horizons married to light, by permission of David Higham Associates. the slow gesture of clouds above the marsh, @ Response Seascapes the glitter of sunlight on mudflats, The hem of the sea turns white, Poems by Michael Armstrong the timeless sound of bells from Blythburgh church. flaps on a sandy thigh rinses the head of each rock, $ Dawn at Sea Your music grew from all these things, unravels among the stones. The breeze is scented with canvas your Naiades in their world of reeds, horizons are waiting for masts our queen of moonlight drifting on the sea The fold of its emerald robe Green eyes blinded like pearls and the song you wrote for Undine when she smiled and beckoned. hides the immaculate goddess stare from the wake of the ship who deep in her bed of slime The palace invaded by waves Michael Armstrong, 1986 only responds to the moon. is ivory burnished with salt and daylight torn from the sky Alwyn’s major works for the voice were all composed 1948. MacNeice joined the BBC in 1941 as a writer and # Slum Song glows through the white corridors. during the latter part of his career over a fifteen-year producer, remaining there for twenty years providing Words by Louis MacNeice period between 1965 and 1980. These include two them with many radio plays. Alwyn was prevailed upon O the slums of Dublin fermenting with children % Sea-Mist operas, Juan or the Libertine (1965-1971), Miss Julie to provide the incidental music to five of these: Four Wander far and near The negro ghosts are dancing (1973-1976) and four of the five works recorded here: Years at War (1943), City Set on a Hill (1945), London The growing years are a cruel squadron wrapped in their white shawls. Mirages (1970), Six Nocturnes (1973), Invocations Victorious (1945), Threshold of the New (1945), and And poverty is a rusty cauldron (1977) and Seascapes (1980). The same period also saw The Careerist (1946). All of these received a broadcast Wander near and far. The bell beyond the harbour the completion of the song cycle A Leave Taking for at the time by the BBC either on the Home Service or calls to unseen waves. tenor and piano, Sinfonietta for string orchestra, the Third Programme. Alwyn’s haunting setting of The youths play cards by the broken fanlight Symphony No. 5 (Hydriotaphia), Naiades (a Fantasy Slum Song provides an appropriate elegiac mood for Wander far and near Somewhere the wingless birds Sonata for flute and harp), String Quartet No. 2 (Spring MacNeice’s nostalgic evocation of a Dublin long past. The jack looks greasy in the sunlight are waiting for the wind. Waters) and a Concerto for flute and eight wind The work is dedicated to the poet’s wife, Hedli As hands will fumble in the moonlight instruments. By the time these works were composed Anderson, and is here receiving its world première Wander near and far. ^ Song of the Drowned Man Alwyn had left London for the Suffolk village of recording. Sea song Blythburgh where the tranquil surroundings provided The six songs that make up the song-cycle Mirages, And the grown man must play the horses of the breathless cave an added inspiration to the composer’s creative work. for baritone and piano, were composed between Wander far and near Beyond the surf Alwyn’s earlier works involving the voice include September and October 1970. They are a musical Some do better on different courses a tongueless bell. settings of William Blake – Songs of Experience, Songs realisation of a group of poems by the composer which But the blacks will remain to draw the hearses.