Graham Peel: Ettrick – song for baritone and piano (1925)

When I was looking through some old posts on my Land of Lost Content Blog I found that in 2008 I had posted this essay about Graham Peel: Ettrick – song for baritone and piano. Somehow it had become corrupted with some of the text missing and the fonts lacking uniformity. I have no hesitation in posting this again. I have corrected a few typos and matters of style but have not changed the content of the essay.

I was rummaging in a well-known second-hand music bookshop in London the other day (during 2008) and I found this song by the relatively unknown composer Graham Peel. This caught my eye largely because it is an evocation of the Scottish Border Country, an area that I have long-known and loved. It is a corner of Scotland that is often by-passed when tourists are heading north to the Highlands. Yet, ignoring the wind-farms and the monoculture of coniferous forestation, this part of Scotland remains a wild and unspoilt area. Literary associations abound, including Sir Walter Scott, John Buchan, Robert Louis Stevenson and James Hogg. Culturally rugby and hunting are more important in this region that other parts of the Scottish Nation. From the latter, the ethos of this song surely derives.

Where he is known at all, Graham Peel, is seen as a respected writer of songs – especially his setting of four poems from Housman’s Shropshire Lad. However, he has written over a hundred other songs to texts by many diverse poets and versifiers. There are also a few piano pieces.

Graham Peel was born in Pendlebury, Salford in 1878 and was educated at Harrow and University College, Oxford where he was fortunate to study with Dr Ernest Walker. He moved to Bournemouth in 1914 and remained there until his death in 1937, aged 59. He spent much of his life as a public servant and was heavily involved in the Discharged Prisoner’s Aid Society. Naturally, music took up a considerable portion of his life: he was President of the local branch of the British Music Society and was chairman of the Bournemouth Municipal Choir. Composition was therefore a relatively small part of his day to day work.

It is easy to compare Peel’s settings of Housman with those by Vaughan Williams, Gurney, Butterworth and Somervell – and to declare them inferior. Yet this is to miss the point. Philip Scowcroft wisely suggests that ‘Peel’s genuine lyrical gift which hovers between ballad and art-song but perhaps is more often nearer the former.’ It is in this context that we must judge his vocal music.

The words of this song were written by the Scottish poet and writer William Henry (W.H.) Ogilvie. Ogilvie was born at Holefield which is situated in the Borders, between Kelso and Coldstream. After a good education at Fettes College in Edinburgh, he worked on a sheep station in Australia. He began writing poetry at his time. After his return to Scotland he became a published author, writing both verse and agricultural journalism. He produced a number of ‘small volumes’ of poetry including one dealing with fox-hunting – a popular pastime in the Borders.

Graham Peel had recently set Ogilvie’s ‘The Challenge’ (1920) and ‘Little Brown Bees’ (1925) Other settings included at this time ‘Ferry me across the water’ by Christiana Rossetti, ‘The Lute Player’ by William Watson, ‘Nick Spence’ by William Allingham and ‘Kew in Lilac Time’ by Alfred Noyes. As an aside, the back-cover advert of the sheet music is for several works by the largely forgotten composer Martin Shaw – his suite for String Quartet looks promising, as do his settings of Masefield’s ‘Cargoes’, and Bliss Carman’s ‘At Columbine’s Grave’. It is unfortunate that Shaw’s catalogue is largely unknown and unheard.

Wild Ettrick, Wild Ettrick,
Your blue river gleams,
An azure cloak’d lover
That rides thro’ my dreams,
The heath’s at your stirrup,
The broom’s at your knee,
You sing in your saddle
A love song to me.

Thro’ green lands you led me
In lone ways apart
In long days you told me
Things dear to my heart,
In dream-time, in silence,
With haunting refrain
You murmur them over
And over again.

Wild Ettrick, Wild Ettrick
Love-raider in blue
Ah! Swing me to saddle
And take me with you
To glens of remembrance
And hills of desire,
The stars over Kirkhope
The Moon on the Swire

The basic sentiment of the song is love of the native land that an exile may have and his dreams of that place. The poet draws an analogy with a lover in the accepted sense of the word. For the curious, a ‘swire’ is a gentle depression between two hills and would appear to be an ‘old English’ word that has jumped across the border.

The song is simple – both from the singer’s and the accompanist’s point of view. The vocal range is from D to F^’ and is hardly taxing for a good baritone. The work is in waltz-time and is written in G major. It is signed ‘allegretto grazioso’ which perhaps seems an odd tempo for a song of horsemanship.

The piano accompaniment echoes the progress of the vocal melody and is primarily written in octaves and common chords. The fundamental melody is derived from a G major triad in second inversion and slips between the tonic and the dominant chord. The tune could certainly be described as naïve – although this is, I think a deliberate attempt to mimic a ballad. There is also a feel of the hunting horn in this melody – which is highly appropriate, considering the poem’s protagonist is most likely a huntsman! Each stanza ends with a long-held note lasting for more than three bars. The second and third stanzas are set to a similar, but not identical melody. It is as if the composer had regarded the initial phrase as a ‘set’ and then presented the notes in varying order. The second verse has a brief modulation to B minor. The final stanza has an interesting variation for the penultimate line – Peel modulates to the dominant seventh of the subdominant. And finally, the very last line of the poem is signed ‘ad lib’ and is unaccompanied. This is preceded by a short cadenza on the piano and the song ends on a long tenor D and is supported by a piano coda.

The song was published by J.B Cramer of New Bond Street, London in 1925. There is no record of any first performances - although I guess it would not be too off the mark to suggest that it was given in Bournemouth. The work appears to have fallen out of the repertoire.

As far as I am aware this song is not presently available on CD. However, I have found a reference to a recording made in 1926 by Denis Noble. It was coupled with a song called Passing By alleged to be by a certain Mr Purcell – but apparently so dull as to make an ascription to Henry unlikely!