This month sees the publication of yet another book demonstrating Thomas Hardy's less than sympathetic treatment of his two wives, (Hardy Women: Mothers, Sisters, Wives, Muses - Paula Byrne). The complaint against Hardy is robustly summarised by Nina Stibbe when discussing his poems: most of them are rubbish and do not help me understand him. They make me think of him as wallowing and moaning and wishing for the olden days and that he hadn’t been such a **** to his wife. One Guardian journalist considers this 'the greatest review of Hardy ever' - I consider it the semi-literate, facile reaction of a bright but limited young woman. Be that as it may, it did start me thinking again about the undeniable schism between Hardy as creative artist, deeply empathetic towards women, and the profoundly unempathetic husband. This led me to consider his place in the English song repertoire.
Thomas Hardy had a keen appreciation of the power of music. The son and grandson of church musicians (father and grandfather were viol players in local church bands) Hardy was himself a competent performer and a sensitive listener. Only a musician (who also happens to be a great poet) could have written 'The Choirmaster's Burial', a testament to the power of musical passion which combines, as only Hardy can, the prosaic and the supernatural:
The Choirmaster's Burial
He often would ask us
That, when he died,
After playing so many
To their last rest,
If out of us any
Should here abide,
And it would not task us,
We would with our lutes
Play over him
By his grave-brim
The psalm he liked best--
The one whose sense suits
"Mount Ephraim"--
And perhaps we should seem
To him, in Death's dream,
Like the seraphim.
As soon as I knew
That his spirit was gone
I thought this his due,
And spoke thereupon.
"I think," said the vicar,
"A read service quicker
Than viols out-of-doors
In these frosts and hoars.
That old-fashioned way
Requires a fine day,
And it seems to me
It had better not be."
Hence, that afternoon,
Though never knew he
That his wish could not be,
To get through it faster
They buried the master
Without any tune.
But 'twas said that, when
At the dead of next night
The vicar looked out,
There struck on his ken
Thronged roundabout,
Where the frost was graying
The headstoned grass,
A band all in white
Like the saints in church-glass,
Singing and playing
The ancient stave
By the choirmaster's grave.
Such the tenor man told
When he had grown old.
How fitting, yet ironic, that it is the ever so modern, practical vicar who is granted a glimpse of this sublime mainifestation of God's grace and love.
Benjamin Britten's setting of this poem, like everything else in his Hardy cycle 'Winter Words', is masterly. The range shown in the eight songs is remarkable, from the apparent triviality of 'The Little Old Table', which reveals unexpected poignancy, to the sombre magnificence of 'Before Life and After' one of Hardy's greatest poems, inspiring one of Britten's greatest songs. Peter Pears' recording (accompanied by Britten) is definitive and essential, but if you are allergic to his voice then there are recordings by Langridge, Partridge, Rolfe-Johnson, and Tear. Assiduous rummaging in second hand record dealers racks and charity shops might unearth a recording by Raimund Gilvan, a Lancashire born tenor who made his career in Germany, which is well worth listening to - he also sings Britten's 'Donne' settings, which are arguably, even finer songs than 'Winter Words'.
Hardy has been set by several composers, but it is Gerald Finzi (1901-1956), who is the most prolific setter of Hardy, having composed six cycles of his poems. Comparisons with Britten are telling. It seems to me that each of the songs in 'Winter Words' is an organic fusion of words and music which creates something unique and artistically arresting; I don't always find that with Finzi. Professor Stephen Banfield, whose magisterial 'Sensibility and English Song' has often been my vade mecum in such matters believes that Finzi was sometimes too quick to decide on a setting for a song so that sometimes his music becomes little more than heightened recitative. This certainly seems to be the case with 'I Look Into My Glass' from 'Til Earth Outwears'. The poignancy of Hardy's words remains but these words are showcased rather than transformed by Finzi's setting.
I LOOK into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, "Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!"
For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.
But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.
Elsewhere, Finzi is far more successful, and his settings of 'When I Set Out For Lyonesse' and 'Lizbie Browne' capture beautifully the mystical buoyancy of the former and the faintly bitter wistfulness of the latter. He is also very good at matching Hardy in rumbustuous mood; 'Budmouth Dears' and 'Rollicum Rorum' are both marvellous songs in what I once might have called the 'manly' English song tradition but now, of course, would not dare. Finzi has also created a couple of brilliant quasi operatic scenas out of 'Channel Firing' and 'The Clock of the Years', mirroring to a 'T' Hardy's very particular brand of macabre melodrama. Even here though, I feel Finzi is a admirable word painter rather than a musical alchemist like Britten (or Schubert, or Wolf), although I must admit he comes pretty close to this in a true masterpiece 'Former Beauties.
These market-dames, mid-aged, with lips thin-drawn,
And tissues sere,
Are they the ones we loved in years agone,
And courted here?
Are these the muslined pink young things to whom
We vowed and swore
In nooks on summer Sundays by the Froom,
Or Budmouth shore?
Do they remember those gay tunes we trod
Clasped on the green;
Aye; trod till moonlight set on the beaten sod
A satin sheen?
They must forget, forget! They cannot know
What once they were,
Or memory would transfigure them, and show
Them always fair.
Finzi shows exemplary taste here, the intensity of his setting increasing in line with the gradually heightening emotion of the poem. This song is an excellent example of the perfect gems that are the summit of Finzi's creativity.
From a performer's point of view, I think it fair to say that Finzi's songs are always rewarding to sing, whether entirely successful or not, and his entire vocal oeuvre is worth exploring. We are fortunate to have a range of fine recordings by, amongst others, tenors John Mark Ainsley, Anthony Rolfe-Johnson, Neil Jenkins, Robert Tear and James Gilchrist and baritones Bryn Terfel, Benjamin Luxon, John Carol-Case, Bret Polegato, Stephen Roberts and Roderick Williams. As well as Hardy, Finzi wrote some fine settings of Shakespeare and several other poets.
By Footpath and Stile
Op.2 – version for voice and piano
To a Poet
Op.13a - six songs for low voice and piano
‘To a Poet a thousand years hence’
‘On parent knees’
‘Intrada’
‘The Birthnight’
‘June on Castle Hill’
‘Ode on the rejection of Saint Cecilia’
Oh Fair to See
Op.13b – seven songs for high voice and piano
‘I say I'll Seek Her’
‘Oh fair to see’
‘As I lay in the early sun’
‘Only the wanderer’
‘To Joy’
‘Harvest’
‘Since we loved’
A Young Man’s Exhortation
Op.14 – ten songs for tenor and piano
Part I
‘A Young Man’s Exhortation’
‘Ditty’
‘Budmouth Dears’
‘Her Temple’
‘The Comet at Yelham’
Part II
6. ‘Shortening Days’
7. ‘The Sigh’
8. ‘Former Beauties’
9. ‘Transformations’
10. ‘The Dance Continued’
Earth and Air and Rain
Op.15 – ten songs for baritone and piano
‘Summer Schemes’
‘When I set out for Lyonnesse’
‘Waiting Both’
‘The Phantom’
‘So I have fared’
‘Rollicum-rorum’
‘To Lizbie Browne’
‘The Clock of the Years’
‘In a Churchyard’
‘Proud Songsters’
Before and After Summer
Op.16 – ten songs for baritone and piano
‘Childhood among the ferns’
‘Before and after summer’
‘The Self-Unseeing’
‘Overlooking the River’
‘Channel Firing’
‘In the Mind's Eye’
‘The Too Short Time’
‘Epeisodia’
‘Amabel’
‘He abjures love’
Let us Garlands Bring
Op.18 – Five Shakespeare Songs for voice and piano
‘Come away death’
‘Who is Silvia?’
‘Fear no more the heat of the sun’
‘Oh mistress mine’
‘It was a lover and his lass’
Till Earth Outwears
Op.19a – seven songs for high voice and piano
‘Let me enjoy the earth’
‘In years defaced’
‘The Market-Girl’
‘I look into my glass’
‘It never looks like summer here’
‘At a Lunar Eclipse’
‘Life laughs onward’
I said to Love
Op.19b – six songs for baritone and piano
‘I need not go’
‘At Middle-field Gate in February’
‘Two Lips’
‘In five-score summers’
‘For life I had never cared greatly’
‘I said to Love’
'To a Poet' is particularly note-worthy as, in addition to a very moving setting of James Elroy Flecker's 'To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence' there is a rare example of Finzi setting a poem by one of his contemporaries - George Barker's 'Ode on the Rejection of St Cecilia' - a very ambitious undertaking which succeeds only intermittently, but is still worth hearing. Roderick Williams' legion of admirers will, of course, find a recording by him to enjoy; my preference would be the version by Stephen Roberts in the superb 'Finzi and his Friends' on the Hyperion label, where he is joined by the inimitable Ian Partridge.
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