Edges
A song cycle
The poster was designed by me; I did the painting of an old lady especially for this.
Talking programme notes! - for "Edges"
Read by Richard Hall at the live concert and "illustrated" by playing short excerpts:
Complete performance
1 The Madwoman of Cork
To-day Is the feast day of Saint Anne
Pray for me
I am the madwoman of Cork.
Yesterday
In Castle Street
I saw two goblins at my feet
I saw a horse without a head
Carrying the dead
To the graveyard
Near Turner’s Cross.
I am the madwoman of Cork
No one talks to me
When I walk in the rain
The children throw stones at me
Old men persecute me
And women close their doors.
When I die
Believe me
They’ll set me on fire.
I am the madwoman of Cork
I have no sense.
Sometimes
With an eagle in my brain
I can see a train
Crashing at the station
If I told people that
They’d choke me.
Then where would I be?
I am the madwoman of Cork
The people hate me.
When Canon Murphy died
I wept on his grave
That was twenty-five years ago.
When I saw him just now
In Dunbar Street
He had clay in his teeth
He blest me.
I am the madwoman of Cork
The clergy pity me.
I see death
In the branches of a tree
Birth in the feathers of a bird.
To see a child with one eye
Or a woman buried in ice
Is the worst thing
And cannot be imagined.
I am the madwoman of Cork
My mind fills me.
I should like to be young
To dress up in silk
And have nine children.
I’d like to have red lips
But I’m eighty years old
I have nothing
But a small house with no windows.
I am the madwoman of Cork
Go away from me.
And if I die now
Don’t touch me.
I want to sail in a long boat
From here to Roche’s Point
And there I will anoint
The sea
With oil of alabaster.
I am the madwoman of Cork
And to-day
Is the feast day of Saint Anne.
Feed me.
Patrick Galvin (1930 - )
2 Casting
The waters deep, the waters dark,
Reflect the seekers, hide the sought,
Whether in water or in air to drown.
Between them curls the silver spark,
Barbed, baited, waiting, of a thought –
Which in the world is upside down,
The fish hook or the question mark?
Howard Nemerov (1920 - )
Reflect the seekers, hide the sought,
Whether in water or in air to drown.
Between them curls the silver spark,
Barbed, baited, waiting, of a thought –
Which in the world is upside down,
The fish hook or the question mark?
Howard Nemerov (1920 - )
3 Counting the Mad
This one was put in a jacket,
This one was sent home,
This one was given bread and meat
But would eat none,
And this one cried No No No No
All day long.
This one looked at the window
As though it were a wall,
This one saw things that were not there,
This one things that were,
And this one cried No No No No
All day long.
This one thought himself a bird,
This one a dog,
And this one thought himself a man,
An ordinary man,
And cried and cried No No No No
All day long.
Donald Justice (1925 - )
This one was sent home,
This one was given bread and meat
But would eat none,
And this one cried No No No No
All day long.
This one looked at the window
As though it were a wall,
This one saw things that were not there,
This one things that were,
And this one cried No No No No
All day long.
This one thought himself a bird,
This one a dog,
And this one thought himself a man,
An ordinary man,
And cried and cried No No No No
All day long.
Donald Justice (1925 - )
4 A Birthday Poem
For every year of life we light
a candle on your cake
to mark the simple sort of progress
anyone can make,
and then, to test your nerve or give
a proper view of death,
you’re asked to blow each light, each year,
out with your own breath.
James Simmons (1933 - )
a candle on your cake
to mark the simple sort of progress
anyone can make,
and then, to test your nerve or give
a proper view of death,
you’re asked to blow each light, each year,
out with your own breath.
James Simmons (1933 - )
5 The Butterfly
He was a butterfly
And he had all
The words on his wings,
And he said to the moth
‘I love the light,
And I know how it burns.’
Des McHale (1958 – 1996)
And he had all
The words on his wings,
And he said to the moth
‘I love the light,
And I know how it burns.’
Des McHale (1958 – 1996)
6 The First Day's Night
The first Day’s Night had come –
And grateful that a thing
So terrible – had been endured –
I told my Soul to sing –
She said her Strings were snapt –
Her Bow – to Atoms blown –
And so to mend her – gave me work
Until another Morn –
And then – a Day as huge
As Yesterdays in pairs,
Unrolled its horror in my face –
Until it blocked my eyes –
My Brain – begun to laugh –
I mumbled – like a fool –
And tho’ ’tis Years ago – that Day –
My Brain keeps giggling – still.
And Something’s odd – within –
That person that I was –
And this One – do not feel the same –
Could it be Madness – this?
Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)
And grateful that a thing
So terrible – had been endured –
I told my Soul to sing –
She said her Strings were snapt –
Her Bow – to Atoms blown –
And so to mend her – gave me work
Until another Morn –
And then – a Day as huge
As Yesterdays in pairs,
Unrolled its horror in my face –
Until it blocked my eyes –
My Brain – begun to laugh –
I mumbled – like a fool –
And tho’ ’tis Years ago – that Day –
My Brain keeps giggling – still.
And Something’s odd – within –
That person that I was –
And this One – do not feel the same –
Could it be Madness – this?
Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)
7 Ecclesiastes
There is one sin: to call a green leaf grey,
Whereat the sun in heaven shuddereth.
There is one blasphemy: for death to pray,
For God alone knoweth the praise of death.
There is one creed: ’neath no world-terror’s wing
Apples forget to grow on apple trees.
There is one thing is needful – everything –
The rest is vanity of vanities.
G. K. Chesterton (1874 – 1936)
Whereat the sun in heaven shuddereth.
There is one blasphemy: for death to pray,
For God alone knoweth the praise of death.
There is one creed: ’neath no world-terror’s wing
Apples forget to grow on apple trees.
There is one thing is needful – everything –
The rest is vanity of vanities.
G. K. Chesterton (1874 – 1936)
8 Noon Walk
The summer sun ray
shifts through a suspicious tree.
though I walk through the valley of the shadow
It sucks the air
and looks around for me.
The grass speaks.
I hear green chanting all day.
I will fear no evil, fear no evil
The blades extend
and reach my way.
The sky breaks.
It sags and breathes upon my face.
in the presence of mine enemies, mine enemies
The world is full of enemies.
There is no safe place.
Anne Sexton (1928 – 1974)
shifts through a suspicious tree.
though I walk through the valley of the shadow
It sucks the air
and looks around for me.
The grass speaks.
I hear green chanting all day.
I will fear no evil, fear no evil
The blades extend
and reach my way.
The sky breaks.
It sags and breathes upon my face.
in the presence of mine enemies, mine enemies
The world is full of enemies.
There is no safe place.
Anne Sexton (1928 – 1974)
9 Love's Madness
Willed yet not controlled by will
I was lifted to a great height
Onto a vast and grass-tussock’d hill
Up into the yearning light.
Life and I ran hand in hand in love
On endless summers days
Protected and immune up there above
We happily lay together ’till dusk’s haze
Willed again; as time drew on we ran as one
Toward the edge of the unknown
And plunged headlong into the dying sun
And over the abyss! And there our spirit has flown
Into an ageless clime, the kiss of Spring
Gives our love in timeless bliss its fling.
Rick Birley - Feb 16 1982
I was lifted to a great height
Onto a vast and grass-tussock’d hill
Up into the yearning light.
Life and I ran hand in hand in love
On endless summers days
Protected and immune up there above
We happily lay together ’till dusk’s haze
Willed again; as time drew on we ran as one
Toward the edge of the unknown
And plunged headlong into the dying sun
And over the abyss! And there our spirit has flown
Into an ageless clime, the kiss of Spring
Gives our love in timeless bliss its fling.
Rick Birley - Feb 16 1982
10 Hospital for Defectives
By your unnumbered charities
A miracle disclose,
Lord of the Images, whose love,
The eyelid and the rose
Takes for a language, and today
Tell to me what is said
By these men in a turnip field
And their unleavened bread.
For all things seem to figure out
The stirrings of your heart.
And two men pick the turnips up
And two men pull the cart;
And yet between the four of them
No word is ever said
Because the yeast was not put in
Which makes the human bread.
But three men stare on vacancy
And one man strokes his knees;
What is the meaning to be found
In such dark vowels as these?
Lord of the Images, whose love,
The eyelid and the rose
Takes for a metaphor, today
beneath the warder’s blows,
The unleavened man did not cry out
Or turn his face away;
Through such men in a turnip field
What is it that you say?
Thomas Blackburn (1916 – 1977)
A miracle disclose,
Lord of the Images, whose love,
The eyelid and the rose
Takes for a language, and today
Tell to me what is said
By these men in a turnip field
And their unleavened bread.
For all things seem to figure out
The stirrings of your heart.
And two men pick the turnips up
And two men pull the cart;
And yet between the four of them
No word is ever said
Because the yeast was not put in
Which makes the human bread.
But three men stare on vacancy
And one man strokes his knees;
What is the meaning to be found
In such dark vowels as these?
Lord of the Images, whose love,
The eyelid and the rose
Takes for a metaphor, today
beneath the warder’s blows,
The unleavened man did not cry out
Or turn his face away;
Through such men in a turnip field
What is it that you say?
Thomas Blackburn (1916 – 1977)
This is the original text of the concert programme:
Concert Programme
Notes by Rick Birley
Soprano – Abbi Temple Violin – Jennifer Curiel Piano – Peter Oakes
Today it is the premiere of my song-cycle “Edges”, as well as an associated composition for violin and piano “Austerity”. The songs were composed over a period of nearly two years from 2004, being completed in January 2006. No.6 - “the first Day’s Night” - is based on a piece I originally composed for the “Songs of Time” in 1997.
Austerity Violin: Jennifer Curiel / Piano: Peter Oakes
“Austerity” was composed over three weeks in February / March this year. The piece was conceived as an adjunct to Edges, and is based upon a poem I wrote entitled “Weather of Her Soul” reproduced at the end of this programme. An old woman, perhaps the Madwoman of Cork herself, stares at her image in a mirror and travels over her wrinkled features through the dark centres of her own eyes and into the depths of her soul beyond, into the vastness of her inner self.
Composer’s notes about Edges, read on his behalf by Dr. Richard Hall. These are illustrated by short musical extracts.
EDGES Soprano Abbi Temple / Violin: Jennifer Curiel / Piano: Peter Oakes
1. The Madwoman of Cork
2. Casting
3. Counting the Mad
4. A Birthday Poem
5. The Butterfly
6. The first Day’s Night had come…
7. Ecclesiastes
8. Noon Walk on the Asylum Lawn
9. Love’s Madness
10. Hospital for Defectives
The life blood for a composer is the performance of his/her music, and an occasion such as this concert – and being present throughout the rehearsal process – gives public voice to my inner creative urges and encourages me to write more. I am a composer of often difficult and note-laden music but that is just the language I feel I need to use. The Emperor in the play Amadeus utters the immortal words “too many notes” after hearing one of Mozart’s new operas, but I think very few people would agree with his view! It is often suggested about my music – quite understandably – but I hope that every single note serves a useful purpose… On the rare occasions like today when musicians with ample technique manage to cope with the technical difficulties of my music I feel wonderfully reassured about what I do. Austerity was composed specifically for Jenni and Peter, and Edges specifically for Abbi. Without these fantastic musicians my music would remain locked in my own head! I am enormously grateful therefore to them for making such a huge effort required to perform these pieces at this level here today.
We recorded “Edges” here in St Mary’s Church at the end of April. CDs are available after this concert at the back of the church – for £5.
Edges – a song cycle
1 The Madwoman of Cork
To-day / Is the feast day of Saint Anne / Pray for me / I am the madwoman of Cork.
Yesterday / In Castle Street/ I saw two goblins at my feet / I saw a horse without a head
Carrying the dead / To the graveyard / Near Turner’s Cross.
I am the madwoman of Cork / No one talks to me
When I walk in the rain / The children throw stones at me / Old men persecute me / And women close their doors.
When I die / Believe me / They’ll set me on fire.
I am the madwoman of Cork / I have no sense.
Sometimes / With an eagle in my brain / I can see a train / Crashing at the station
If I told people that / They’d choke me / Then where would I be?
I am the madwoman of Cork / The people hate me.
When Canon Murphy died / I wept on his grave / That was twenty-five years ago.
When I saw him just now / In Dunbar Street / He had clay in his teeth / He blest me.
I am the madwoman of Cork / The clergy pity me.
I see death / In the branches of a tree / Birth in the feathers of a bird.
To see a child with one eye / Or a woman buried in ice / Is the worst thing / And cannot be imagined.
I am the madwoman of Cork / My mind fills me.
I should like to be young / To dress up in silk / And have nine children.
I’d like to have red lips / But I’m eighty years old / I have nothing / But a small house with no windows.
I am the madwoman of Cork / Go away from me.
And if I die now / Don’t touch me.
I want to sail in a long boat / From here to Roche’s Point / And there I will anoint / The sea / With oil of alabaster.
I am the madwoman of Cork / And to-day / Is the feast day of Saint Anne.
Feed me.
Patrick Galvin (1930 - )
2 Casting
The waters deep, the waters dark, / Reflect the seekers, hide the sought,
Whether in water or in air to drown.
Between them curls the silver spark, / Barbed, baited, waiting, of a thought –
Which in the world is upside down, / The fish hook or the question mark?
Howard Nemerov (1920 - )
3 Counting the Mad
This one was put in a jacket, / This one was sent home, / This one was given bread and meat / But would eat none,
And this one cried No No No No / All day long.
This one looked at the window / As though it were a wall, / This one saw things that were not there, /This one things that were,
And this one cried No No No No / All day long.
This one thought himself a bird, / This one a dog, / And this one thought himself a man, / An ordinary man,
And cried and cried No No No No / All day long.
Donald Justice (1925 - )
4 A Birthday Poem
For every year of life we light / a candle on your cake / to mark the simple sort of progress / anyone can make,
and then, to test your nerve or give / a proper view of death,
you’re asked to blow each light, each year, / out with your own breath.
James Simmons (1933 - )
5 The Butterfly
He was a butterfly / And he had all / The words on his wings,
And he said to the moth / ‘I love the light, / And I know how it burns.’
Des McHale (1958 – 1996)
6 The first Day’s Night had come…
The first Day’s Night had come – / And grateful that a thing / So terrible – had been endured – / I told my Soul to sing –
She said her Strings were snapt – / Her Bow – to Atoms blown – / And so to mend her – gave me work / Until another Morn –
And then – a Day as huge / As Yesterdays in pairs, / Unrolled its horror in my face – / Until it blocked my eyes –
My Brain – begun to laugh – / I mumbled – like a fool – / And tho’ ’tis Years ago – that Day – /My Brain keeps giggling – still.
And Something’s odd – within – / That person that I was – / And this One – do not feel the same – / Could it be Madness – this?
Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)
7 Ecclesiastes
There is one sin: to call a green leaf grey, / Whereat the sun in heaven shuddereth.
There is one blasphemy: for death to pray, / For God alone knoweth the praise of death.
There is one creed: ’neath no world-terror’s wing / Apples forget to grow on apple trees.
There is one thing is needful – everything – / The rest is vanity of vanities.
G. K. Chesterton (1874 – 1936)
8 Noon Walk on the Asylum Lawn
The summer sun ray / shifts through a suspicious tree.
though I walk through the valley of the shadow
It sucks the air / and looks around for me.
The grass speaks. / I hear green chanting all day.
I will fear no evil, fear no evil
The blades extend / and reach my way.
The sky breaks. / It sags and breathes upon my face.
in the presence of mine enemies, mine enemies
The world is full of enemies. / There is no safe place.
Anne Sexton (1928 – 1974)
9 Love’s madness
Willed yet not controlled by will / I was lifted to a great height / Onto a vast and grass-tussock’d hill / Up into the yearning light.
Life and I ran hand in hand in love / On endless summers days / Protected and immune up there above
We happily lay together ’till dusk’s haze / Willed again; as time drew on we ran as one / Toward the edge of the unknown
And plunged headlong into the dying sun / And over the abyss! And there our spirit has flown
Into an ageless clime, the kiss of Spring / Gives our love in timeless bliss its fling.
Rick Birley - Feb 16 1982
10 Hospital for Defectives
By your unnumbered charities / A miracle disclose, / Lord of the Images, whose love,
The eyelid and the rose / Takes for a language, and today
Tell to me what is said / By these men in a turnip field / And their unleavened bread.
For all things seem to figure out / The stirrings of your heart. / And two men pick the turnips up / And two men pull the cart;
And yet between the four of them / No word is ever said / Because the yeast was not put in / Which makes the human bread.
But three men stare on vacancy / And one man strokes his knees; / What is the meaning to be found /In such dark vowels as these?
Lord of the Images, whose love, / The eyelid and the rose / Takes for a metaphor, today
beneath the warder’s blows, / The unleavened man did not cry out / Or turn his face away;
Through such men in a turnip field / What is it that you say?
Thomas Blackburn (1916 – 1977)
We are very grateful for the use of this church whose rich acoustic lends itself so well to the business of making music. In addition we are also very grateful to the Dorset Music Instruments Trust, in particular Zara Percy and John Lock, for permission to use the concert Steinway grand piano.
The Performers
Abbi Temple, Soprano
Originally from Weymouth, Abbi began singing lessons locally with Christine Page, before going on study at Royal Holloway and Trinity College of Music. Supported by vocal department and choral scholarships, she studied with Hazel Wood, Robert Aldwinckle & Eugene Asti and took part in masterclasses with Michael Chance and Emma Kirkby.
Abbi is now enjoying a varied freelance singing and teaching career. Equally at home on stage or on the concert platform, she sings regularly with ensembles such as the Gabrieli Consort, English Voices and the National Chamber Choir of Ireland, with whom she as performed all over Europe and in the US. Abbi sings regularly as an oratorio soloist, while on the opera stage she has recently played Zerlina (Don Giovanni) for Opera Anywhere and Musetta (La Bohème) for Candlelight Opera. Previous opera roles have included Barbarina (Le Nozze di Figaro), Giannetta (L’Elisir d’Amore), Euridice (L’Orfeo) and Polly Peachum (The Beggar’s Opera). Plans for the coming months include Despina (Così fan Tutte) and Zerlina (Don Giovanni) for Candlelight Opera and Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi) for South Wessex Opera.
Jennifer Curiel, Violin
Jennifer has been able to read music since she was 3 years old. This was something she initiated herself as although her family enjoyed listening to music no one had really expressed an interest in learning an instrument. At the age of 5 she embarked on her dream - to learn the violin! From taking local lessons and also playing the piano and clarinet Jennifer started at Junior Guildhall School of Music in London at the age of 8. She spent 10 happy years there before going to the Royal Academy of Music to take the Performers' Course at 18. After completing the 4 year course Jennifer was offered a job with the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation of Bermuda teaching the violin and playing in a Quartet and Orchestra. Sadly this was only to cover maternity leave and after 1 year she travelled over to the USA where she studied in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University with the Concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony, Andres Cardenes. She completed her Masters' Degree there and returned to En gland where she embarked on her freelance career based in London. She had trials with the BBC Concert Orchestra, English National Opera and Birmingham Royal Ballet before being offered a job in the 1st violins of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. As well as playing in the BSO Jennifer is a member of the Mini BSO which visits many schools in the area working with children of all ages and abilities. She is also a member of Kokoro String Quartet which plays 20th century music and the Myriad Quartet which plays all sorts of things!
Peter Oakes, Piano
After training as a Maths teacher, Peter Oakes worked in London as a double bass player. Having moved to Dorset in 1992, he has spent more and more of his time playing and teaching the piano, and conducting The Thomas Hardye Singers. This he finds to be a happy state of affairs.
April 20th, 2010:
on this day seven of the songs were performed at the Birmingham Conservatoire [in the Adrian Boult Hall] by Louise Wayman, accompanied by Jonathan French [piano] and Chia-Lun Chang [violin]. Louise had chosen these songs as part of her final assessment, and I was thrilled by the performance. It managed to present the music quite differently to the recording [Abbi et al], so that her performance had its own very individual character. I count myself so fortunate to have two such fabulous singers interpreting my pieces with such personal integrity.
I am hoping that Louise will be able to persuade her accompanying team to record Edges, if at all possible....