Five Songs of England
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NZ$40.00
NZ$35.00
NZ$35.00
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Song-cycle of five songs for tenor voice and piano.
Set to poems by -
Rupert Brooke, A.E. Houseman, Charles Kingsley and Edward Thomas.
"Yes. I remember Adlestrop the name, because one afternoon of heat the express train drew up there unwontedly it was late in June."
- Edward Thomas
Duration 15 mins
size 30 x 21 cms
staple bound
Set to poems by -
Rupert Brooke, A.E. Houseman, Charles Kingsley and Edward Thomas.
"Yes. I remember Adlestrop the name, because one afternoon of heat the express train drew up there unwontedly it was late in June."
- Edward Thomas
Duration 15 mins
size 30 x 21 cms
staple bound
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I - The Soldier
II - Blue Evening III - Grenadier IV - Three Fishers V - Adlestrop The Soldier by Rupert Brooke is a very poignant and prophetic poem. Brooke died in 1915 during the First World War of sepsis caused from an infected mosquito bite. He is buried on the Greek island of Skyros in a place that is 'forever England'. Blue Evening, the second song set to a poem by Rupert Brooke, reflects on life during a simpler time. Though even here there is the knocking of fate. The Grenadier by AE Houseman tells the story of a young man conscripted to the army 'for thirteen pence a day' . Death is also the subject of the The Three Fishers by Charles Kingsley. Kingsley lived at the lovely fishing village of Clovely in Devon where he saw fishermen risking their lives on the sea every day. The three fishermen of the poem are found washed up on the beach after a storm while the women lament. Adlestrop is probably Edward Thomas' most well-known and loved poem. It tells the apparently simple story about a train that stops suddenly in the middle of nowhere. The station sign still remains near the village and I was fortunate to pass it often on my musical journeys to Adlestrop House. |