Theodore Roethke’s charming and wistful poem ‘The Hippo’ is given an
appropriate setting that matches the tongue in cheek sentiment of the author. Roethke
(1908-1963) was an American poet who wrote “an extraordinarily diverse and
lyrical body of poetry. He could be sombre or playful, surrealistic or erotic
or romantic, or many of these things at once.”
Graham Lloyd notes the pause on the word ‘yawn’ in ‘...he starts to
yawn, it takes all day.’ Perhaps the music is a little bit more melancholy than
the spirit of the poem demands. Yet from a listener’s point of view this is a
near perfect matching of text and music. The song was composed in 2003 and received
its first performance that year at the Royal Grammar School in Worcester with
Nathan Vale as soloist and Paul Plummer on the piano. The Hippo is the last of
Venables’ Six Songs Op.33.
The mezzo soprano Sally Porter-Munro and pianist
Graham Fitch give a superb performance of this song. It was part of a concert
given at The Royal Grammar School, Worcester, on July 23rd, 2011.
Listen to Ian Venables’ ‘The Hippo’ on YouTube.
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