Of the Church and From the Heart: Part Songs and Anthems of 20th Century England
Saturday, March 8, 1997 at 8:00 pm.
Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)
God Is Gone Up, op. 27#2 (1951)
I Praise the Tender Flower, op. 17#1
My Spirit Sang All Day, op. 17#3 (1934-37)
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Three Shakespeare Songs (1951)
Full Fathom Five
The Cloud-Capp'd Towers
Over Hill, Over Dale
I Got Me Flowers (from Five Mystical Songs, 1911)
Ca' the Yowes (1922)
Edward Cuthbert Bairstow (1874-1946)
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence (1925)
Gustav Holst (1874-1934)
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, op. 36a#1 (1916)
Eternal Father, H. 169 (1927)
Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)
Beati quorum via integra est, op. 38#3 (1905)
The Blue Bird, op. 119#3 (1910)
Holst
Come to Me, op. 12#5 (1902-03)
John Joubert (b. 1927)
O Lorde, the Maker of Al Thinge, op. 7b (1952)
Vaughan Williams
The Spring Time of the Year (1913)
The Dark Eyed Sailor (1913)
Just as the Tide Was Flowing (1913)
Lord, Thou Hast Been Our Refuge (1921)
Program notes
Texts and translations
Finzi: God Is Gone Up
Edward Taylor (1646?-1729), from "Sacramental Meditations"
God is gone up with a triumphant shout:
The Lord with sounding Trumpets' melodies:
Sing Praise, sing Praise, sing Praise, sing Praises out,
Unto our King sing praise seraphicwise!
Lift up your Heads, ye lasting Doors, they sing,
And let the King of Glory enter in.
Methinks I see Heaven's sparkling courtiers fly,
In flakes of Glory down him to attend,
And hear Heart-cramping notes of Melody
Surround his Chariot as it did ascend;
Mixing their Music, making ev'ry string
More to enravish as they this tune sing.
Finzi: I Praise the Tender Flower
Robert Bridges (1844-1930)
I praise the tender flower,
That on a mournful day
Bloomed in my garden bower
And made the winter gay.
Its loveliness contented
My heart tormented.
I praise the gentle maid
Whose happy voice and smile
To confidence betrayed
My doleful heart awhile.
And gave my spirit deploring
Fresh wings for soaring.
The maid for very fear
Of love I durst not tell
The rose could never hear,
Though I bespake her well:
So in my song I bind them
For all to find them.
Finzi: My Spirit Sang All Day
Robert Bridges (1844-1930)
My spirit sang all day
O my joy.
Nothing my tongue could say,
Only: My joy!
My heart an echo caught
O my joy
And spake, Tell me thy thought.
Hide not thy joy.
My eyes gan peer around,
O my joy
What beauty hast thou found?
Shew us thy joy.
My jealous ears grew whist;
O my joy,
Music from heaven is't,
Sent for our joy?
She also came and heard;
O my joy,
What, said she, is this word?
What is thy joy?
And I replied, O see,
O my joy,
'Tis thee, I cried, 'tis thee:
Thou art my joy.
Vaughan Williams: Three Shakespeare Songs
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
[Burden: Ding-dong, bell]
Hark! now I hear them - Ding-dong, bell.
The Tempest, Act I, Sc. 2
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind: We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
The Tempest, Act IV, Sc. 1
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moonè's sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Sc. 1
Vaughan Williams: I Got Me Flowers
George Herbert (1593-1633)
I got me flowers to strew thy way;
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But thou wast up by break of day,
And brought'st thy sweets along with thee.
The Sun arising in the East
Though he give light, and the East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With thy arising, they presume.
Can there be any day but this,
Though many suns to shine endeavor?
We count the hundred, but we miss:
There is but one, and that one ever.
Vaughan Williams: Ca' the Yowes
Robert Burns (1759-1796)
Ca' the yowes tae the knowes,
Ca' them whar the heather grows,
Ca' them whar the burnie rows,
My bonnie dearie. |
Call the ewes to the knolls
the brooklet rolls
|
Hark the mavis' e'enin' sang,
Sounding Cluden's woods amang;
Then afauldin' let us gang,
My bonnie dearie. |
song-thrush's evening song
among
a-herding let us go |
Fair and lovely as thou art,
Thou hast stown my very heart;
I can die, but canna part,
My bonnie dearie. |
stolen
cannot leave you |
While waters wimple to the sea,
While day blinks in the lift sae hie,
Till clay-cauld death shall blin' my e'e
Ye shall be my dearie. |
ripple
shines in the sky so high
clay-cold; blind my eye |
Bairstow: Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
from the Liturgy of St. James
Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
and stand with fear and trembling,
And lift itself above all earthly thought.
For the King of kings and Lord of lords, Christ our God,
cometh forth to be our oblation,
and to be giv'n for Food to the faithful.
Before Him come the choirs of angels,
with ev'ry principality and pow'r;
the Cherubim with many eyes, and wingèd Seraphim,
who veil their faces as they shout exultingly the hymn.
Alleluia.
Holst: Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
from the Liturgy of St. James, translated by Gerard Moultrie (1829-1885)
Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in his hand,
Christ our Lord to earth descendeth
Our full homage to demand.
King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture
In the Body and the Blood
He will give to all the faithful
His own Self for heavenly food.
Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day
That the pow'rs of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.
At his feet the six-winged seraph;
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the Presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry,
Alleluia, alleluia,
Alleluia Lord most High. Amen.
Holst: Eternal Father
Robert Bridges (1844-1930)
Eternal Father, who didst all create,
In whom we live, and to whose bosom move,
To all men be Thy name known, which is Love,
Till its loud praises sound at heaven's high gate.
Perfect Thy kingdom in our passing state,
That here on earth Thou mayst as well approve
Our homage as Thou ownest theirs above
Whose joy we echo, and in pain await.
Grant body and soul each day their daily bread:
And should in spite of grace fresh use begin,
Even as our anger soon is past and dead,
Be Thy remembrance mortal of our sin.
By Thee in paths of peace Thy sheep be led
And in the vale of terror comforted.
Alleluia.
Stanford: Beati quorum via integra est
Psalm 119:1 (Ps. 118 in Latin Vulgate)
Beati quorum via integra est:*
qui ambulant in lege Domini. |
Blessed are they whose way is pure;
who walk in the law of the Lord. |
* In the Vulgate: Beati immaculati in via: Blessed are the undefiled in the way.
Stanford: The Blue Bird
Mary Coleridge (1861-1907)
The lake lay blue below the hill,
O'er it, as I looked, there flew
Across the waters, cold and still,
A bird whose wings were palest blue.
The sky above was blue at last,
The sky beneath me blue in blue,
A moment, ere the bird had passed,
It caught his image as he flew.
Holst: Come to Me
Christina Rosetti (1830-1894)
Come to me in the silence of the night,
Come in the speaking silence of a dream:
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream; come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of vanished years.
O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet
Whose wak'ning should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimful of love abide and meet,
Where thirsting, longing eyes watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.
Yet come to me in dreams that I may give
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath, speak low, lean low
As long ago, my love, how long ago.
Joubert: O Lorde, the Maker of Al Thinge
King Henry VIII (1491-1547)
O Lorde, the maker of al thinge,
We pray Thee now in this evening
Us to defende, through Thy mercy,
From al deceite of our en'my. |
Let neither us deluded be,
Good Lorde, with dreame or phantasy,
Our hearte wakyng in Thee Thou kepe,
That we in sinne fal not on slepe. |
i.e., so that we do not fall into sin while asleep |
O Father, throughe Thy blessed Sonne,
Grant us this our peticion,
To whom with the Holy Ghost alwaies,
In heav'n and yearth be laude and praise. |
Vaughan Williams: The Spring Time of the Year
English folk song
As I walked out one morning,
In the springtime of the year,
I overheard a sailor boy,
Likewise a lady fair.
They sang a song together,
Made the valleys ring,
While the birds on spray
and the meadows gay
Proclaimed the lovely spring.
Vaughan Williams: The Dark Eyed Sailor
English folk song
It was a comely young lady fair,
Was walking out for to take the air;
She met a sailor all on her way,
So I paid attention to what they did say.
Said William, "Lady, why walk alone?
The night is coming and the day near gone."
She said, while tears from her eyes did fall,
"It's a dark eyed sailor that's proving my downfall.
"It's two long years since he left the land;
He took a gold ring from off my hand,
We broke the token, here's part with me,
And the other lies rolling at the bottom of the sea."
Then half the ring did young William show,
She was distracted midst joy and woe.
"O welcome, William, I've lands and gold
For my dark eyed sailor, so manly true and bold."
Then in a village down by the sea,
They joined in wedlock and well agree,
So maids be true while your love's away,
For a cloudy morning brings forth a shining day.
Vaughan Williams: Just As the Tide Was Flowing
English folk song
One morning in the month of May,
Down by some rolling river,
A jolly sailor, I did stray,
When I beheld my lover.
She carelessly along did stray,
A-picking of the daisies gay;
And sweetly sang her roundelay,
Just as the tide was flowing.
O! her dress it was so white as milk,
And jewels did adorn her.
Her shoes were made of the crimson silk,
Just like some lady of honour.
Her cheeks were red, her eyes were brown,
Her hair in ringlets hanging down;
She'd a lovely brow without a frown,
Just as the tide was flowing.
I made a bow and said "Fair maid,
How came you here so early;
My heart by you it is betray'd
For I do love you dearly.
I am a sailor come from sea
If you will accept of my company
To walk and view the fishes play"
Just as the tide was flowing.
No more we said, but on our way
We gang'd along together;
The small birds sang, and the lambs did play,
And pleasant was the weather.
When we were weary we did sit down,
Beneath a tree with branches round;
For my true love at last I'd found,
Just as the tide was flowing.
Vaughan Williams: Lord, Thou Hast Been Our Refuge
Psalm 90, Anglican Book of Common Prayer (verses 8, 11-12, 15-16 omitted)
verse adaptation by Isaac Watts (1674-1748)
Lord, Thou hast been our refuge, from one generation to another.
O God our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast
And our eternal home.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, Thou art God from everlasting to everlasting, and world without end.
Thou turnest man to destruction; again Thou sayest, Come again ye children of men.
For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday, seeing that is past as a watch in the night.
As soon as Thou scatterest them they are even as a sleep; and fade away suddenly like the grass.
In the morning it is green and groweth up; but in the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered.
For we consume away in Thy displeasure, and are afraid at Thy wrathful indignation.
For when Thou art angry all our days are gone: we bring our years to an end as a tale that is told.
The years of our age are threescore years and ten, and though men be so strong that they come to fourscore years, yet is their strength but labour and sorrow; so passeth it away and we are gone.
Turn thee again, O Lord, at the last; be gracious unto Thy servants
O satisfy us with Thy mercy and that soon: so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life.
And the glorious majesty of the Lord be upon us; prosper Thou the work of our hands, O prosper Thou our handiwork.
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