8.572600 The English Song Series • 22 DDD BRITTEN Songs and Proverbs of William Blake Tit for Tat Folk-songs

Roderick Williams, Baritone Iain Burnside, Piano Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) Tyger, redolent of the finale of his recent Cello Sonata, preface to the published score Britten writes, ‘although I Songs and Proverbs of William Blake • Tit for Tat • Folk-songs seems to portray the tiger’s growls in the first of two songs hold no claims whatever for the songs’ importance or in which Blake’s comparisons of man with beast and insect originality, I do feel that the boy’s vision has a simplicity Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk on St Cecilia’s Day 1913, William Blake, which Britten dedicated to Fischer-Dieskau: ask questions as to our common origins and aspirations: and clarity which might have given a little pleasure to the Benjamin Britten was a prodigious musician, showing a ‘To Dieter: the past and the future’. are we in fact all that different? The final proverbs and great poet, with his unique insight into a child’s mind.’ Tit great determination in his pursuit of composition from a Britten asked Pears to select the texts for the cycle, songs contemplate time and eternity, the variation of for Tat takes its name from the final song in the set, a fancy very early age. He composed his first work – a song – at the which, as the title suggests, he chose from the writings of Proverb VI notably developed to sound the knells of time. in which de la Mare imagines the poacher, Tom Noddy, age of five, and by the time he began formal studies in the English visionary artist and poet, William Blake, from In the last proverb the variation motif is developed in the becoming the poached. composition with Frank Bridge in January 1928, when he his Songs of Experience, Auguries of Innocence and voice, but also continues into the final song, its shape Britten and Pears gave numerous recitals together, for was fourteen, he had written more than 500 works, Proverbs of Hell. Fischer-Dieskau wrote that he was becoming the basis of the accompaniment of the song. The which Britten would sometimes arrange folk-songs for including numerous piano and chamber works, dozens of ‘especially taken with the terseness, the British under- figure finally finds resolution at the close of the cycle, inclusion as lighter numbers in the programme, often as songs, and some great symphonic essays. This application statement, the intellectual concentration, and the enigmatic dwelling in the ‘Realms of day’. encores. His unique and colourful arrangements breathe to his art was to be a defining feature of Britten’s pro- smile of these dense, linguistically original sayings.’ In his later years Britten revisited some of his extensive new life into these traditional songs, going well beyond the fessional life as a mature composer, being perhaps the key Blake’s poems and aphorisms are certainly dense and, juvenilia, resulting in a number of ‘new’ works. One such simple harmonies of those published by Cecil Sharp and to the apparently effortless genius he achieved in his ranging as they do from the metaphorical to the pro- work was performed for the first time by the baritone John others. His first arrangements were made in late 1941, while greatest works. vocatively cynical, they demand some thought to elicit their Shirley Quirk, accompanied by Britten, at the 1969 Alde- in America, at which time he was feeling homesick for As composer, pianist and conductor, Britten developed meaning. The result is one of Britten’s most sombre song burgh Festival. This was a set of five settings of poems by England. This selection of folk-songs from the British Isles close associations with performers, writing many of his cycles; a work that questions the human condition, our Walter de la Mare composed between the ages of fourteen (he also arranged a number of French folk-songs) includes works with specific artists in mind. This was particularly so relationships both human and eternal, and the folly of man’s and seventeen (1929-1931), which in the spring of 1968 three songs that are not officially folk-songs, being with his vocal works, many of which were composed for preoccupations; and while the words were written nearly Britten brought together, with only minor polishings, under attributable to an author, but which are regarded as being his partner of forty years, the tenor Peter Pears, whom he two centuries ago, Britten’s music seems to make them the title Tit for Tat. De la Mare was a favourite poet of in the spirit of folk-songs: a setting of W. B. Yeats’s Down met in 1937. While many of his major song cycles and feel contemporary; fresh and relevant for the present time. Britten’s youth, and was a significant poet for Britten in by the Salley Gardens (Salley gardens: a field of willow principal operatic rôles were created for Pears, Britten Songs and Proverbs of William Blake is, unusually for that his first published work was a set of de la Mare part- trees), Robert Burns’s Ca’ the yowes (‘Call the ewes to the admittedly finding it difficult to write for any other voice, Britten, set as one continuous piece. The seven proverbs, songs, issued in 1932 when Britten was eighteen years old. knolls’, in which a stream rolls along (‘burnie rowes’), a he did compose for other singers on occasion. One such however, as well as providing links between the poems, Aptly, the set was dedicated to de la Mare’s son, Richard, song-thrush (‘mavis’) is heard, and a hobgoblin (‘bogie’) association began in the early 1960s when Britten was act as unifying markers throughout the work. These starkly who in 1966 had become chairman of Britten’s publisher, seen, by ‘Clouden’s silent towers’ – the ruins of Lincluden commissioned to write a work for the celebrations sur- set proverbs are each based on the same four-note melodic Faber Music. Abbey), and a song from Charles Dibdin’s 1789 show The rounding the consecration in May 1962 of the newly built motif; a set of variations akin to the series of variations that The levity and directness of these early songs contrast Oddities, Tom Bowling, a song familiar from its inclusion Coventry Cathedral: the War Requiem. The baritone soloist form the interludes between scenes in Britten’s 1954 most notably with the Songs and Proverbs of William in Sir Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea Songs, heard in the War Requiem was Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and chamber opera, The Turn of the Screw. Blake, but while the songs are juvenilia, they already show at many a Last Night of the Proms. with this work began an association that continued with In the first two songs the chimney sweeper seems to Britten’s sympathetic approach to word-setting. In his the writing of the Cantata Misericordium for him and Pears become the personification of woe, with Blake’s play upon Philip Lancaster in 1963. Britten and Fischer-Dieskau were at this time the crying of his wares, ‘[s]weep’, embodying that sorrow, discussing at some length the writing of an opera based on half-hidden behind Britten’s imagining of the sweep’s Shakespeare’s King Lear, in which Fischer-Dieskau would melancholy dance. At the heart of the work is the most have played Lear alongside Pears as the Fool. While the substantial song of the cycle, A Poison Tree, a setting of a opera never came to fruition, their collaboration continued poem which seems to echo the fall of man in the Garden of in 1965 when Britten composed a song cycle for Fischer- Eden, and in which the chromatic snaking of the vocal line Dieskau, of which they gave the première together at the seems to depict the singer’s wrath wrapping itself ever Aldeburgh Festival of that year: the Songs and Proverbs of tighter within his being. Britten’s accompaniment in The Roderick Williams Iain Burnside The baritone Roderick Williams encompasses a wide Iain Burnside enjoys a unique reputation as pianist and repertoire, from baroque to contemporary music, in the broadcaster, forged through his commitment to the song opera house (where he is particularly associated with the repertoire and his collaborations with leading international baritone rôles of Mozart), on the concert platform and in singers. In recent seasons such artists have included recital. He has also sung world premières of operas by, Rebecca Evans, Ailish Tynan, Susan Bickley and Ann among others, David Sawer, Sally Beamish, Michael van Murray; John Mark Ainsley, Andrew Kennedy, Mark der Aa and Alexander Knaifel. He has worked with Padmore, Roderick Williams, William Dazeley and Bryn orchestras throughout Europe, including all the BBC Terfel. His extensive recording portfolio reflects his orchestras in the United Kingdom, and his many festival passion for British music: the complete songs of Gerald appearances include the BBC Proms, Edinburgh, Finzi, together with Butterworth, Gurney, Ireland and Cheltenham and Aldeburgh. His recital appearances have Vaughan Williams on Naxos; Britten, Tippett, Herbert taken him to London’s Wigmore Hall and many European Hughes, FG Scott and Judith Weir on Signum; Richard festivals. He has an extensive discography and his Rodney Bennett on NMC; contemporary Scottish recordings of English song with Iain Burnside have repertoire on Delphian. The NMC Songbook received a received particular acclaim. Roderick Williams is also a Gramophone Award. In 2012 Albion Records will issue a composer and has had works performed at the Wigmore solo disc of Vaughan Williams and Gurney. His and Barbican Halls, the Purcell Room and live on national broadcasting career covers both radio and television and radio in Britain. has been honoured with a Sony Radio Award. He is Research Associate at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Photo: Benjamin Ealovega Photo: Adrian Weinbercht Songs and Proverbs of William Blake, Op. 74 8 The Tyger Am not I Texts selected from the writings of William Blake (1757–1827) Tyger! Tyger! burning bright A fly like thee? In the forests of the night, Or art not thou A man like me? 1 Proverb I ‘Because I was happy upon the heath, What immortal hand or eye And smil’d among the winter’s snow Could frame thy fearful symmetry? For I dance, The pride of the peacock is the glory of God. And drink & sing, The lust of the goat is the bounty of God. They clothed me in the clothes of death, In what distant deeps or skies And taught me to sing the notes of woe. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? Till some blind hand The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God. Shall brush my wing. The nakedness of woman is the work of God. And because I am happy & dance & sing On what wings dare he aspire? They think they have done me no injury, What the hand dare seize the fire? If thought is life 2 London And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King And what shoulder, & what art, And strength & breath I wander thro’ each charter’d street, Who make up a heaven of our misery.’ Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And the want Near where the charter’d Thames does flow And when thy heart began to beat, Of thought is death; 5 Proverb III And mark in every face I meet What dread hand? & what dread feet? Then am I The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship. Marks of weakness, marks of woe. What the hammer? what the chain? A happy fly, If I live, In every cry of every Man, 6 A Poison Tree In what furnace was thy brain? In every Infant’s cry of fear, What the anvil? what dread grasp Or if I die. I was angry with my friend: In every voice, in every ban, Dare its deadly terrors clasp! ! Proverb VI The mind-forg’d manacles I hear. I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: When the stars threw down their spears, The hours of folly are measur’d by the clock; How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry I told it not, my wrath did grow. And water’d heaven with their tears, But of wisdom, no clock can measure. Every black’ning Church appalls, Did he smile his work to see? And I water’d it in fears, The busy bee has no time for sorrow. And the hapless Soldier’s sigh Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Eternity is in love with the productions of time. Runs in blood down Palace walls. Night & morning with my tears; And I sunned it with smiles, Tyger! Tyger! burning bright @ Ah! Sun-flower But most thro’ midnight streets I hear And with soft deceitful wiles. In the forests of the night, How the youthful Harlot’s curse What immortal hand or eye Ah, Sun-flower! weary of time, Blasts the new-born Infant’s tear And it grew both day and night, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? Who countest the steps of the Sun, And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse. Till it bore an apple bright. Seeking after that sweet golden clime, And my foe beheld it shine, 9 Proverb V Where the traveller’s journey is done: 3 Proverb II And he knew that it was mine. The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of Where the Youth pined away with desire, Prisons are built with stones of Law, brothels And into my garden stole instruction. And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow, with bricks of Religion. When the night had veil’d the pole: If the fool would persist in his folly he would become Arise from their graves and aspire In the morning glad I see wise. Where my Sun-flower wishes to go. 4 The Chimney-Sweeper My foe outstretch’d beneath the tree. If others had not been foolish, we should be so. A little black thing among the snow, # Proverb VII 7 Proverb IV 0 The Fly Crying ’weep ’weep in notes of woe! To see a World in a Grain of Sand ‘Where are thy father & mother? say?’ Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Little Fly, And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, ‘They are both gone up to the church to pray.’ Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night. Thy summer’s play Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand My thoughtless hand And Eternity in an hour. Has brush’d away. $ Every night and every morn We are led to Believe a Lie ™ Tom Bowling Charles Dibdin (1745–1814) But first he bended, and then he broke; Every Night & every Morn When we see not Thro’ the Eye Here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling, And so did my false love to me. Some to Misery are Born. Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night The darling of our crew; A ship there is, and she sails the sea, Every Morn & every Night When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light. No more he’ll hear the tempest howling, She’s loaded deep as deep can be, Some are Born to sweet delight. God appears & God is Light, For death has broach’d him to: But not so deep as the love I’m in: Some are Born to sweet delight, To those poor Souls who dwell in Night; His form was of the manliest beauty, I know not if I sink or swim. Some are Born to Endless Night. But does a Human Form Display His heart was kind and soft. O, love is handsome and love is fine, To those who Dwell in Realms of day. Faithful below, Tom did his duty, And love’s a jewel while it is new And now he’s gone aloft. But when it is old, it groweth cold, Folk-songs of the British Isles Tom never from his word departed, And fades away like morning dew. Traditional except where attributed His virtues were so rare; ¢ Oliver Cromwell His friends were many and true-hearted, His Poll was kind and fair: Oliver Cromwell lay buried and dead, ) The Plough Boy ¡ The foggy, foggy dew Hee-haw, buried and dead. A flaxen-headed cowboy, as simple as may be, When I was a bachelor I lived all alone, And then he’d sing so blithe and jolly – There grew an old apple-tree over his head, And next a merry plough-boy, I whistled o’er the lea; And worked at the weaver’s trade Ah! many’s the time and oft – Hee-haw, over his head. But now a saucy footman I strut in worsted lace, And the only, only thing that I ever did wrong, But mirth is turn’d to melancholy, For Tom is gone aloft. The apples were ripe and ready to fall, And soon I’ll be a butler, and whey my jolly face. Was to woo a fair young maid. Hee-haw, ready to fall. When steward I’m promoted I’ll snip the trademen’s I wooed her in the winter time, Yet shall poor Tom find pleasant weather, There came an old woman to gather them all, bill, And in the summer too; When He, who all commands, Hee-haw, gather them all. My master’s coffers empty, my pockets for to fill. And the only, only thing I did that was wrong Shall give, to call life’s crew together, The word to pipe all hands: Oliver rose and gave her a drop, When lolling in my chariot, so great a man I’ll be, Was to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew. Hee-haw, gave her a drop. So great a man, so great a man, so great a man I‘ll be, One night she came to my bedside Thus death, who kings and tars despatches, Which made the old woman go hippety hop, You’ll forget the little ploughboy that whistled o’er the When I lay fast asleep, In vain Tom’s life hath doff ’d, Hee-haw, hippety hop. lea. She laid her head upon my bed For though his body’s under hatches, His soul has gone aloft. The saddle and bridle, they lie on the shelf, I’ll buy votes at elections, but, when I’ve made the pelf, And she began to weep. Hee-haw, lie on the shelf. I’ll stand poll for the parliament, and then vote in She sighed, she cried, she damn near died, £ O Waly, Waly If you want any more you can sing it yourself, myself; She said, ‘What shall I do?’ Hee-haw, sing it yourself. Whatever’s good for me, sir, I never will oppose; The water is wide, I cannot get o’er, So I hauled her into bed and I covered up her head, And neither have I wings to fly. When all my ayes are sold off, why then I’ll sell my Just to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew. ∞ The Ash Grove noes. Give me a boat that will carry two, Down yonder green valley where streamlets meander, I’ll joke, harangue, and paragraph, with speeches Oh, I am a bachelor and I live with my son, And both shall row, my love and I. When twilight is fading, I pensively rove, charm the ear; And we work at the weaver’s trade. O down in the meadows the other day, Or at the bright noontide in solitude wander And when I’m tired on my legs, then I’ll sit down a And ev’ry single time that I look into his eyes, A-gathering flowers both fine and gay, Amid the dark shades of the lonely Ash Grove. peer; He reminds me of the fair young maid. A-gathering flowers both red and blue, In court or city honours, so great a man I’ll be, He reminds me of the winter time, I little thought what love can do. ’Twas there while the blackbird was joyfully singing, So great a man, . . . And of the summer too, I first met my dear one, the joy of my heart; I leaned my back up against some oak Around us for gladness the bluebells were ringing. And of the many, many times that I held her in my arms Thinking that he was a trusty tree; Just to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew. Ah! then little thought I how soon we should part. Still glows the bright sunshine o’er valley and • Little Sir William Hark, the mavis’ evening sang, Fair and lovely as thou art, mountain, Easter day was a holiday Sounden Clouden’s woods amang, Thou hast stol’n my very heart; Still warbles the blackbird his note from the tree; Of all the days in the year, Then afolding let us gang, I can die but canna part, Still trembles the moonbeam on streamlet and And all the little schoolfellows went out to play My bonnie dearie. My bonnie dearie. fountain, But Sir William was not there. Ca’ the yowes . . . Ca’ the yowes . . . But what are the beauties of nature to me? Mamma went to the school wife’s house We’ll gang down by Clouden side, With sorrow, deep sorrow, my bosom is laden, And knocked at the ring, Through the hazels spreading wide All day I go mourning in search of my love. Saying, ‘Little Sir William if you are there, O’er the waves that sweetly glide Ye echoes, O tell me, where is the sweet maiden? Pray let your mother in.’ To the moon sae clearly. She sleeps ’neath the green turf down by the Ca’ the yowes . . . Ash Grove. The school wife open’d the door and said, ‘He is not here today. § The Salley Gardens W. B. Yeats (1865–1939) He is with the little schoolfellows out on the green The English Song Series Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; Playing some pretty play.’ The much acclaimed English Song series celebrates the rich and diverse works by British composers such as Britten, She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white Mamma went to the Boyne water Finzi and Vaughan Williams, sung by leading interpreters of the repertoire. The series includes new recordings as well feet. That is so wide and deep as recordings of English Songs previously released on the now-defunct Collins Classics label. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the Saying, ‘Little Sir William if you are there, ALWYN, W.: Mirages / 6 Nocturnes / Seascapes / Invocations (Vol. 17) 8.570201 tree; Oh pity your mother’s weep.’ BRITTEN: 7 Sonnets of Michelangelo / Holy Sonnets of J. Donne / Winter Words (Vol. 7) 8.557201 But I, being young and foolish, with her would not ‘How can I pity your weep, mother, BRITTEN: Canticles Nos. 1-5 / The Heart of the Matter (Vol. 9) 8.557202 agree. And I so long in pain? BRITTEN: Folk-song Arrangements (Vol. 10) 8.557220-21 In a field by the river my love and I did stand, For the little pen knife sticks close to my heart BRITTEN: Folk-song Arrangements, Vol. 2 (Vol. 13) 8.557222 And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white And the school wife hath me slain. BRITTEN: Songs and Proverbs of William Blake / Tit fot Tat / Folk-songs (Vol. 22) 8.572600 hand. Go home, go home my mother dear BUTTERWORTH, G.: A Shropshire Lad / Folk-songs from Sussex (Vol. 20) 8.572426 She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the And prepare my winding sheet, FINZI: Earth and Air and Rain / To a Poet / By Footpath and Stile (Vol. 15) 8.557963 weirs; For tomorrow morning before 8 o’clock, FINZI: I Said to Love / Let Us Garlands Bring / Before and After Summer (Vol. 12) 8.557644 But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears. You with my body shall meet. FINZI: Young Man’s Exhortation (A) / Till Earth Outwears / Oh Fair to See (Vol. 16) 8.570414 GURNEY, I.: Songs (Vol. 19) 8.572151 ¶ There’s none to soothe And lay my Prayer Book at my head, HOLST: Vedic Hymns / Four Songs, Op. 35 / Humbert Wolfe Settings (Vol. 6) 8.557117 There’s none to soothe my soul to rest, And my grammar at my feet, IRELAND: 5 Poems / We’ll to the Woods No More / Sea Fever / Santa Chiara (Vol. 18) 8.570467 That all the little schoolfellows as they pass by There’s none my load of grief to share LEHMANN: Daisy Chain (The) / Bird Songs / Four Cautionary Tales (Vol. 8) 8.557118 May read them for my sake.’ Or wake to joy this lonely breast, QUILTER: Folk-song Arrangements / Part-Songs for Women’s Voices (Complete) (Vol. 11) 8.557495 Or light the gloom of dark despair. ª Ca’ the yowes Robert Burns (1759–1796) QUILTER: Songs (Vol. 5) 8.557116 SOMERVELL: Shropshire Lad (The) / James Lee’s Wife / Songs of Innocence (Vol. 2) 8.557113 The voice of joy no more can cheer, Ca’ the yowes tae the knowes, VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: On Wenlock Edge / Five Mystical Songs (Vol. 3) 8.557114 The look of love no more can warm Ca’ them where the heather growes, VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Songs of Travel / The House of Life (Vol. 14) 8.557643 Since mute for aye’s that voice so dear, Ca’ them where the burnie rowes, And closed that eye alone could charm. My bonnie dearie. VENABLES I.: On the Wings of Love / Venetian Songs (Vol. 21) 8.572514 WALTON: Anon in Love / Facade Settings / A Song for the Lord (Vol. 1) 8.557112 WARLOCK: Curlew (The) / Lillygay / Peterisms / Saudades (Vol. 4) 8.557115 More from Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside: Britten wrote his Songs and Proverbs of William Blake, Op. 74 for the German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in 1965. The singer admired the ‘concentration and enigmatic smile’ of the settings, and Britten constructed, through alternation of proverbs with songs, and an intense contemplation on the human and the eternal, one of his greatest song cycles. By contrast Tit for Tat sees Britten revisiting youthful, light-spirited settings of the poet Walter de la Mare. The folk-song arrangements are amongst his most famous, and beloved.

Benjamin BRITTEN (1913–1976) Songs and Proverbs ! Proverb VI 1:40 Folk-songs 25:50 8.557643 8.557963 of William Blake, @ Ah! Sun-flower 3:11 ) The Plough Boy 1:43 Op. 74 26:03 # Proverb VII 0:48 ¡ The foggy, foggy 1 Proverb 1 1:19 $ Every night and every dew 2:02 2 London 2:22 morn 2:57 ™ Tom Bowling 4:27 3 £ O Waly, Waly 3:17 Proverb II 0:38 Tit for Tat 8:38 4 The Chimney- ¢ Oliver Cromwell 0:43 % A Song of Sweeper 2:18 ∞ The Ash Grove 2:23 Enchantment 2:32 5 Proverb III 0:49 § The Salley ^ Autumn 1:17 6 A Poison Tree 4:34 Gardens 2:28 & Silver 1:32 7 Proverb IV 0:45 ¶ There’s none to * Vigil 1:35 8 The Tyger 1:55 soothe 1:39 ( Tit for Tat 1:39 8.570467 8.572426 9 Proverb V 0:50 • Little Sir William 2:43 0 The Fly 1:55 ª Ca’ the yowes 4:10 Roderick Williams, Baritone • Iain Burnside, Piano

Recorded at Potton Hall, Westleton, Suffolk, 4–6 January 2011 Producer & Editor: Andrew Walton (K&A Productions Ltd.) • Engineer: Mike Clements Publishers: Faber Music (tracks 1–19); Boosey & Hawkes (20–29) • Booklet notes: Philip Lancaster Available sung texts included and accessible at www.naxos.com/libretti/572600.htm Cover image from ‘Songs of Innocence and of Experience’ by William Blake (1757-1827) (Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library)