My introduction to English Song
back in the early 1970s was John Shirley Quirk’s account of Ralph Vaughan
Williams’s Songs of Travel (Saga XID5211). These settings of Robert
Louis Stevenson’s “wayfarer poems” appealed to me, as a teenager who had been
brought up on the author’s timeless romances Treasure Island, Kidnapped
and Catriona. Since that time, I have heard various recordings of this
great cycle, including those by Bryn Terfel, Roderick Williams and Will
Liverman (reviewed here).
Songs of Travel were written between 1901 and 1904. They have been published in several editions. It was not until after the composer’s death that Ursula Vaughan Williams released, I have trod the upward and the downward slope. Also not included in the original score was the sad Whither must I wander.
I prefer Songs of Travel being sung by a baritone. My go-to version of this cycle is still John Shirley Quirk, even after more than 50 years. However, the present liner notes gave me pause for thought. Although typically a work that exhibits “sturdiness,” the other side of the coin is that “the delicacy and lightness of touch of many of the songs, and their eminent suitability for the tenor voice, have been comparatively neglected.”
Despite my preference above,
James Geer’s account is outstanding in every way. The highlights (for me) are Let
Beauty Awake and Bright is the Ring of Words. My favourite number is
Youth and Love. I never fail to be moved by the lines “but waves a hand
as he passes on/ Cries but a wayside word to her at the garden gate/Sings, but
a boyish stave and his face is gone.” Perhaps the most poignant moment is in
the final number, I have Trod the Upward and Downward Slope, when RVW alludes
to previous songs in the cycle, bringing it to a poignant conclusion.
Less-often performed are RVW’s Four Poems by Fredegond Shove completed in 1925. Fredegond Shove (pronounced as in ‘Grove’) was related to the composer: his first wife Adeline Fisher was Shove’s aunt. Her poetry was included on a volume of Georgian Poetry (1918-19) published by Sir Edward Howard Marsh. For much of her life, Shove was an adherent of the Bloomsbury Group.
Sadly, some commentators have
criticised Shove’s verse as being “a little too idyllically cosy” or “clawingly
religiose for comfort,” and RVW’s settings presenting “dreadful verse…transcended
by the music.” Trevor Hold wondered if “family ties had not influenced Vaughan
Williams in his choice [of texts].” Lacking taste, (perchance) I appreciate
both text and music.
The last, The Watermill
has become one of his most popular songs, with its detailed correspondence
between the mill and its inhabitants with the resultant music. As a work of art,
it reaches towards Schubert. The subject of the mystical The New Ghost
may not be to modern taste, with the newly departed soul meeting Christ, but
there is no doubt that RVW has created some wonderfully numinous music equal to
his Bunyan settings. Equally magical is the opening number, Motion and Stillness
which majors on “The sea-shells lie as cold as death/Under the sea/The clouds
move in a wasted wreath Eternally.” RVW has produced a song that is dead-slow-stop,
as befits the title. Equally lovely is Four Nights which muses on the
passing of the Four Seasons, (and its metaphor of life), a sentiment caught by his
setting.
For details of Elizabeth Maconchy’s life and achievement, I recommend her daughter Nicola Le Fanu’s essay on MusicWeb International, here. Suffice that Maconchy studied at the Royal College of Music with Ralph Vaughan Williams and Charles Wood. Her catalogue includes music written in most genres including orchestral, concerted, opera and chamber music. The latter is represented by an important cycle of thirteen string quartets. Her songs are the least-well-known aspect of her achievement. Stylistically, she has absorbed and synthesised many influences, including Bartók, Stravinsky, Janáček, and her former teacher, RVW. She was later to develop her own brand of serialism, but later “disowned these works.”
The earliest Maconchy song recorded here is Impetuous Heart, Be Still (1924), setting a text by W.B. Yeats from his play The Countess Cathleen. It is remarkably confident for a seventeen-year-old student. Five years later, in The Cloths of Heaven (1929), again with a text by Yeats, she creates an “unsettling” mood that emphasises desolation and a stark mood, far removed from the romantic take by Thomas Dunhill. The following year she set Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s contemplative poem, The Woodspurge (1930) which deals with heartbreak and grief. The liner notes explain its genesis: Maconchy describes in a letter to Grace Williams that it was “composed first as a solo piano piece in 1929, while away in Prague, and then transmuted into song when she read the poem while on honeymoon the following year.” The Thrush (1934), to words by John Keats, is dry and intense. The sonnet expounds what is going on in the bird’s mind, not the poet’s. True knowledge and joy will come to those who are “passive and receptive” and not “impatient.”
In 1938, Elizabeth Maconchy’s
husband, William Le Fanu, translated some poems from the Anacreontea, a volume
of about sixty short poems authored by post-Classical Greek writers. These date
from the first century BC to the sixth century AD. Their subject matter
includes wine, beauty, erotic love, and the worship of Dionysus. Elizabeth set
seven of them in her The Garland: Variations on a Theme. Four were later
published in 1984. James Geer has chosen to sing two of the remaining songs,
from manuscript. Love Stood at My Door and The Bee-Sting complement
each other in their subject matter: “the wayward and cruel antics of the
boy-god Cupid (Eros) with his love arrows.” The former is almost operatic in
concept: Britten may be an influence here. The Bee-Sting is absorbed and
intense, reflecting on Cupid having been stung by a bee, and his mother saying
to him “If the bee-sting
hurts/How do you think they suffer, Love/Whom you shoot?”
I found the final Maconchy work on this CD, Faustus, quite challenging. Not so much by avant-garde standards, but simply that its sound world is unique in English music. Written in 1971, this is less a song than “a dramatic scena for tenor and piano.” Here the listener will find no echoes of her teacher’s modalism. Neither has she imitated Benjamin Britten.
The burden of the text is taken
from The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe: it
majors on the last hour before Faustus descends to hell. The notes explain that
the entire piece contrasts consonance and dissonance in “playing out
metaphorically…as symbols of heaven and hell.” Extravagant music for an
overblown text.
Ronald Woodley provides detailed liner notes. They explore the relationship between RVW and his pupil Elizabeth Maconchy. Considerable space is given to a discussion of the “newly recovered Maconchy songs.” All the texts are included. It would have helped if the dates of the works had been given in the track listing. The booklet is illustrated by photographs of the two performers and a thoughtful study of Maconchy as a young woman. The charming cover, Herding cows before a farmstead, is by the Newlyn School artist, Harold Charles Francis Harvey (1874–1941).
James Geer is always sensitive to the music and the words. Ronald Woodley provides the perfect accompaniment. The balance between singer and piano is ideal.
It was a wonderful idea to pair
RVW with his erstwhile pupil Elizabeth Maconchy. It makes a fascinating
opportunity for exploring the vocal music of these two English composers. I
look forward to reviewing the second instalment of this series.
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)
Songs of Travel (1901-04)
1. The Vagabond
2. Let Beauty Awake
3. The Roadside Fire
4. Youth and Love
5. In Dreams
6. The Infinite Shining Heavens
7. Whither Must I Wander?
8. Bright is the Ring of Words
9. I Have Trod the Upward and the Downward Slope
Elizabeth Maconchy (1907–94)
10. Love Stood at My Door (1938)
11. The Bee-Sting (1938)
12. The Woodspurge (1930)
13. The Cloths of Heaven (1929)
14. The Thrush (1934)
15. Impetuous Heart, Be Still (1924)
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Four Poems by Fredegond Shove (1925)
16. Motion and Stillness
17. Four Nights
18. The New Ghost
19. The Water Mill
Elizabeth Maconchy
20. Faustus (1971)
James Geer (tenor), Ronald Woodley (piano)
rec. 5-8 September 2021, Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth
Resonus RES10299
With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published.
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