Lieder – index:
1. Beatriz's Song
2. Daphne
3. Long steel grass
4. Old Sir Faulk
5. Popular Song
6. Tango - Pasodoble
7. The winds
8. Through gilded trellises
9. Tritons
10. Under the greenwood tree
11. "A Song for the Lord
Mayor's Table"
a) The Lord Mayor's Table
b) Glide gently
c) Wapping Old Stairs
d) Holy Thursday
e) The Contrast
f) Rhyme
12. "Anon in Love"
a) Fain would I change that
note
b) Stay, sweet love
c) Lady, when I behold the roses
d) My Love in her attire
e) I gave her cakes and I gave her ale
f) To couple is a custom
1. "Beatriz's Song"
Text by Louis MacNeice (1907-1963)
Music by William Walton,from Christopher Columbus, arranged by Christopher Palmer
When will he return?
Only to depart.
Harrowed by the omen
Of his restless heart;
Bondsman of the voice,
Rival to the Sun,
Viceroy of the sunset
Till his task be done.
Though he is my love
He is not for me;
What he loves lies over
Loveless miles of sea.
Haunted by the West,
Eating out his heart
When will he return?
Only to depart.
2.
"Dapne"
Text by Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)
Music by William Walton, from the Façade settings
When green as a river was the barley,
Green as a river the rye,
I waded deep and began to parley
With a youth whom I heard sigh.
'I seek', said he, 'a lovely lady,
A nymph as bright as a queen,
Like a tree that drips with pearls her shady
Locks of hair were seen;
And all the rivers became her flocks
Though their wool you cannot shear,
Because of the love of her flowing locks,
The kingly sun like a swain came strong,
Unheeding of her scorn,
Wading in deeps where she has lain,
Sleeping upon her river lawn
And chasing her starry satyr train.
She fled, and changed into a tree,
That lovely fair-haired lady
And now I seek through the sere summer
Where no trees are shady!'
3. "Long steel grass"
Text by Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)
Music by William Walton, from the Façade settings
Long steel grass -
The white soldiers pass -
The light is braying like an ass.
See
The tall Spanish jade
With hair black as night-shade
Worn as a cockade!
Flee
Her eyes' gasconade
And her gown's parade
(As stiff as a brigade!)
Tee-hee!
The hard and braying light
Is zebra'd black and white
It will take away the slight
And free
Tinge of the mouth organ sound,
(Oyster-stall notes) oozing round
Her flounces as they sweep the ground.
The
Trumpet and the drum
And the martial cornet come
To make the people dumb -
But we
Won't wait for sly-foot night
(Moonlight, watered milk-white, bright)
To make clear the declaration
Of our Paphian vocation
Beside the castanetted sea,
Where stalks Il Capitaneo
Swaggart braggadocio
Sword and moustacio
He
Is green as a cassada
And his hair is an armada.
To the jade: 'Come kiss me harder'
He called across the battlements as she
Heard our voices thin and shrill
As the steely grasses' thrill,
Or the sound of the ocnycha
When the phoca has the pica
In the palace of the Queen Chinee!
4.
"Old Sir Faulk"
Text by Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)
Music by William Walton, from the Façade settings
Old Sir Faulk,
Tall as a stork,
Before the honeyed fruits of dawn were ripe,
Would walk and stalk with a gun
The reynard-coloured sun,
Among the pheasant-feathered corn
The unicorn has torn,
Forlorn the
Smock-faced sheep
Sit and sleep;
Periwigged as William and Mary, weep...
'Sally, Mary, Mattie, what's the matter, why cry?'
The huntsman and the reynard-coloured sun and I sigh
'Oh, the nursery-maid Meg
With a leg like a peg
Chased the feathered dreams like hens,
And when they laid an egg
In the sheepskin
Meadows
Where,
The serene King James would steer,
Horse and hounds, then he
From the shade of a tree
Picked it up as spoil to boil for nursery tea',
Said the mourners. In the
Corn, towers strain,
Feathered tall as a crane,
And whistling down the feathered rain,
Old Noah goes again -
An old dull mome
With a head like a pome,
Seeing the world as a bare egg,
Laid by the feathered air: Meg
Would beg three of these
For the nursery teas
Of Japhet, Shem and Ham, she gave it
Underneath the trees,
Where the boiling
Water,
Hissed,
Like the goose-king's feathered daughter
Kissed,
Pot and pan and copper kettle
Put upon their proper mettle,
Lest the Flood - the Flood -
The Flood begin again through these!
5. "Popular Song"
Text by Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)
Music by William Walton, from the Façade settings
Lily O'Grady,
Silly and shady,
Longing to be
A lazy lady,
Walked by the cupolas gables in the
Lakes Georgian stables,
In a fairy tale like the heat intense,
And the mist in the woods when across the fence
The children gathering strawberries
Are changed by the heat into negresses,
Though their fair hair
Shines there
Like gold-haired planets, Calliope, Io,
Pomona, Antiope, Echo and Clio.
Then Lily O'Grady,
Silly and shady,
Sauntered along like
A lazy lady.
Beside the waves' haycocks her gown with tucks
Was of satin the colour of shining green ducks,
And her fol-de-rol
Parasol
Was a great gold sun o'er
The haycocks shining,
But she was a negress black as the shade
That time on the brightest lady laid.
Then a satyr, dog-haired as trunks of trees
Began to flatter, began to tease
And she ran like the nymphs with golden foot
That trampled the strawberry, buttercup root,
In the thick cold dew as bright as the mesh
Of dead Panope's golden flesh,
Made from the music whence were born
Memphis and Thebes in the first hot morn,
And ran, to wake
In the lake,
Where the water ripples seem hay to rake.
And Charlotine,
Adeline,
Round rose-bubbling Victorine,
And the other fish
Express a wish
For mastic mantles and gowns with a swish;
And bright and slight as the posies
Of buttercups and of roses,
And buds of the wild wood-lilies
They chase her, as frisky as fillies.
The red retriever-haired satyr
Can whine and tease her and flatter
But Lily O'Grady,
Silly and shady,
In the deep shade is a lazy lady,
Now Pompey's dead, Homer's read,
Heliogabalus lost his head,
And shade is on the brightest wing,
And dust forbids the bird to sing.
6. "Tango - Pasodoble"
Text by Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)
Music by William Walton, from the Façade settings
When Don Pasquito arrived at the seaside
Where the donkey's hide tide brayed, he
Saw the bandito Jo in a black cape
Whose slack shape waved like the sea -
Thetis wrote a treatise noting wheat is silver like the sea,
The lovely cheat is sweet as foam,
Erotis notices that she will steal the
Wheat-kings luggage, like Babel
Before the League of Nations grew -
So Jo put the luggage and the label
In the pocket of Flo the Kangaroo.
Through trees like rich hotels that bode
Of dreamless ease fled she,
Carrying the load and goading the road
Through the marine scene to the sea.
'Don Pasquito, the road is eloping
With your luggage though heavy and large,
You must follow and leave your moping
Bride to my guidance and charge!'
When Don Pasquito returned from the road's end
Where vanilla coloured ladies ride
From Sevilla, his mantilla'd bride and young friend
Were forgetting their mentor and guide.
For the lady and her friend from Le Touquet
In the very shady trees on the sand
Were plucking a white satin bouquet
Of foam, while the sand's brassy band
Blared in the wind. Don Pasquito
Hid where the leaves drip with sweet...
But a word stung him like a mosquito...
For what they hear, they repeat!
7.
"The winds"
Text by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)
Music by William Walton
O weary fa' the east wind,
And weary fa' the west:
And gin I were under the wan waves wide
I wot weel wad I rest.
O weary fa' the north wind,
And weary fa' the south:
The sea went ower my good lord's head
Or ever he kissed my mouth.
Weary fa' the windward rocks,
And weary fa' the lee:
They might hae sunken seven score ships,
And let my love's gang free.
And weary fa' ye, mariners a',
And weary fa' the sea:
It might hae taken an hundred men,
And let my ae love be.
8. "Through gilded trellises"
Text by Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)
Music by William Walton, from the Façade settings
Through gilded trellises of the heat,
Dolores, Inez, Manucia, Isabel, Lucia,
Mock Time that flies.
'Lovely bird, will you stay and sing,
Flirting your sheenèd wing,
Peck with your beak and cling to our balconies?'
They flirt their fans, flaunting
'O silence enchanting as music!'
Then slanting their eyes,
Like gilded or emerald grapes,
They make mantillas, capes,
Hiding their simian shapes.
Sighes each lady, 'Our spadille's done.'
'Dance the quadrill from Hell's towers to Seville;
Surprise their siesta,' Dolores said.
Through gilded trellises or heat,
Spangles pelt down through the tangles of bell flowers;
Each dangles her castanets,
Shutters fall while the heat mutters,
With sounds like a mandoline or tinkled tambourine...
Ladies, Time dies!
9.
"Tritons"
Text by William Drummond (1585-1649)
Music by William Walton
Tritons, which bounding dive
Through Neptune's liquid plain,
Whenas ye shall arrive
With tilting tides where silver Ora plays,
And to your king his wat'ry tribute pays,
Tell how I dying live,
And burn in midst of all the coldest main.
10. "Under the greenwood tree"
Text by William Shakespeare (1564-1616), from As You Like It, Act II, Scene V
Music by William Walton
See also:
Sir Hubert Parry (1848-1918)
Roger Quilter (1877-1953), op. 23 no. 2
Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, hither, come hither:
Here shall he see no enemy
But winter and rough weather.
Who doth ambition shun,
And loves to live i' the sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleas'd with what he gets,
Come hither, hither, come hither:
Here shall he see no enemy
But winter and rough weather.
11. "A Song for the Lord Mayor's Table"
Texts by Thomas Jordan (1612-1685), William Wordsworth (1770-1850), William Blake (1757
1827), Charles Morris, and anonymous poets
Music by William Walton
a) The Lord Mayor's Table
b) Glide gently
c) Wapping Old Stairs
d) Holy Thursday
e) The Contrast
f) Rhyme
a) The Lord Mayor's Table
Text by Thomas Jordan (1612-1685)
Let all the Nine Muses lay by their abuses,
Their railing and drolling on tricks of the Strand,
To pen us a ditty in praise of the City,
Their treasure, and pleasure, their pow'r and command.
Their feast, and guest, so temptingly drest,
Their kitchens all kingdoms replenish;
In bountiful bowls they do succour their souls,
With claret, Canary and Rhenish:
Their lives and wives in plenitude thrives,
They want not for meat nor money;
The Promised Land's in a Londoner's hand,
They wallow in milk and honey.
Let all the Nine Muses lay by their abuses,
Their railing and drolling on tricks of the Strand
To pen us a ditty in praise of the City,
Their treasure, and pleasure, their pow'r and command.
b) Glide gently
Text by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Glide gently, thus for ever, ever glide,
O Thames! that other bards may see
As lovely visions by thy side
As now, fair river! come to me.
O glide, fair stream, for ever so,
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,
Till all our minds for ever flow
As thy deep waters now are flowing.
c) Wapping Old
Stairs
Text by Anonymous
Your Molly has never been false, she declares,
Since last time we parted at Wapping Old Stairs,
When I swore that I still would continue the same,
And gave you the 'bacco box, marked with your name.
When I pass'd a whole fortnight between decks with you,
Did I e'er give a kiss, Tom, to one of the crew?
To be useful and kind, with my Thomas I stay'd,
For his trousers I wash'd, and his grog too I made.
Though you threaten'd, last Sunday, to walk in the Mall
With Susan from Deptford, and likewise with Sal,
In silence I stood your unkindness to hear,
And only upbraided my Tom, with a tear.
Why should Sal, or should Susan, than me be more priz'd?
For the heart that is true, Tom, should ne'er be despis'd;
Then be constant and kind, nor your Molly forsake,
Still your trousers I'll wash, and your grog too I'll make.
d) Holy Thursday
Text by William Blake (1757-1827)
'Twas on a holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
The children walking two and two, in red and blue and green:
Gray-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of St Paul's they like Thames waters flow.
O what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of London town!
Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own.
The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,
Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.
Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song,
Or like harmonious thunderlings the seats of heaven among:
Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor.
Then cherish, cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.
e) The Contrast
Text by Charles Morris
In London I never knew what I'd be at,
Enraptured with this, and enchanted by that,
I'm wild with the sweets of variety's plan,
And life seems a blessing too happy for man.
But the country, Lord help me!, sets all matters right,
So calm and composing from morning to night;
Oh! it settles the spirit when nothing is seen
But an ass on a common, a goose on a green.
Your magpies and stockdoves may flirt among trees,
And chatter their transports in groves, if they please:
But a house is much more to my taste than a tree,
And for groves, O! a good grove of chimneys for me.
In the country, if Cupid should find a man out,
The poor tortured victim mopes hopeless about,
But in London, thank Heaven! our peace is secure,
Where for one eye to kill, there's a thousand to cure.
I know love's a devil, too subtle to spy,
That shoots through the soul, from the beam of an eye;
But in London these devils so quick fly about,
That a new devil shill drives an old devil out.
f) Rhyme
Text by Anonymous, 18th cent.
Gay go up and gay go down,
To ring the bells of London Town.
Oranges and lemons
Say the bells of St. Clement's.
Bull's eyes and targets,
Say the bells of St. Margaret's.
Brickbats and tiles,
Say the bells of St. Giles'.
Half-pence and farthings,
Say the bells of St. Martin's.
Pancakes and fritter's,
Say the bells of St. Peter's.
Two sticks and an apple,
Say the bells of Whitechapel.
Pokers and tongs,
Say the bells of St. John's.
Kettles and pans,
Say the bells of St. Anne's.
Old father baldpate,
Say the slow bells of Aldgate.
You owe me ten shillings,
Say the bells of St. Helen's.
When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey.
When I grow rich,
Say the bells of Shoreditch.
Pray when will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney.
I do not know,
Says the great bell of Bow.
Gay go up and gay go down,
To ring the bells of London Town.
12.
"Anon in Love"
Texts by (?) Tobias Hume (c. 1569-1645)
Music by William Walton
a) Fain would I change that note
b) Stay, sweet love
c) Lady, when I behold the roses
d) My Love in her attire
e) I gave her cakes and I gave her ale
f) To couple is a custom
a) Fain would I change that note
Text also set by other composers.
Fain would I change that note
To which fond Love hath charm'd me
Long, long to sing by rote,
Fancying that that harm'd me:
Yet when this thought doth come
'Love is the perfect sum
Of all delight!'
I have no other choice
Either for pen or voice
To sing or write.
O Love! they wrong thee much
That say thy [sweet] is bitter,
When thy rich fruit is such
As nothing can be sweeter.
Fair house of joy and bliss,
Where truest pleasure is,
I do adore thee:
I know thee what thou art,
I serve thee with my heart,
And fall before thee.
b) Stay, sweet love
O stay, sweet love; see here the place of sporting;
These gentle flowers smile sweetly to invite us,
And chirping birds are hitherward resorting,
Warbling sweet notes only to delight us:
Then stay, dear love, for, tho' thou run from me,
Run ne'er so fast, run ne'er so fast, yet I will follow thee.
I thought, my love, that I should overtake you;
Sweet heart, sit down under this shadow'd tree,
And I, I will promise never, never, to forsake you,
So you will grant to me a lover's fee.
Whereat she smiled, and kindly to me said -
I never meant, I never meant, I never meant,
I never meant to live and die a maid,
I never meant to live and die a maid.
c)
Lady, when I behold the roses
Text also set by other composers.
Lady, when I behold the roses sprouting,
Which clad in damask mantles deck the arbours,
And then behold your lips where sweet love harbours,
My eyes present me with a double doubting;
For, viewing both alike, hardly my mind supposes
Whether the roses be your lips or your lips the roses.
d) My Love in
her attire
My Love in her attire doth show her wit,
It doth so well become her:
For every season she hath dressings fit,
For winter, spring, and summer.
No beauty she doth miss
When all her robes are on:
But Beauty's self, Beauty's self she is
When all her robes are gone.
e) I gave her cakes and I gave her ale
I gave her Cakes and I gave her Ale,
I gave her Sack and Sherry;
I kist her once and I kist her twice,
And we were wondrous merry.
I gave her Beads and Bracelets fine,
I gave her Gold down derry.
I thought she was afear'd till she stroaked my Beard
And we were wondrous merry.
Merry my Hearts, merry my Cocks,
Merry merry merry my Sprights.
Merry merry merry my hey down derry.
I kist her once and I kist her twice,
And we were wondrous merry.
f) To
couple is a custom
To couple is a custom:
All things thereto agree.
Why should not I then love,
Since love to all is free?
But I'll have one that's pretty,
Her cheeks of scarlet dye,
For to breed my delight
When that I lig her by.
Tho' virtue be a dowry,
Yet I'll chuse money store:
If my love prove untrue,
With that I can get more.
The fair is oft unconstant,
The black is often proud,
I'll chuse a lovely brown:
Come fiddler scrape thy crowd.
Come fiddler scrape thy crowd,
For Peggy the brown is she;
She must be my bride;
God guide that Peggy and I agree.
|
