DORSET COMPOSER - RICK BIRLEY
HOME [and contact form]
CONCERT
Rick Birley biography
Compositions [Orchestral works]
Peterloo
Bishops & Clerks
>
The Flow
These Distracted Times
The Rechabite
Sunset Island
Chamber Symphony [No.1] in Five Movements
Symphony No.2 ["little bird"]
Hebrew Songs of Love, Faith & Survival
Piano Concerto
Symphonic Suite for Piano & Orchestra
Tanquam Sponsus [piano & orchestra]
Spanish Folksongs
Chansons de France
A Dorset Rhapsody
Call to Remembrance - a meditation on The Last Post
Nursery Rhymes Kaleidoscope
Latin Primer
Olympian Glories
Sar-planina - a Macedonian folksong
Marat/Sade Suite
>
Marat/Sade notes
Maverick
Variations on a Plainsong
Eight Orchestral Studies
Christmas Exultation
Romney Facets
A Little English Folksong Suite/ The Ploughboy
English Folksong Suite No.2
Movement for String Orchestra "magnas inter opes inops"
Lord of the Dance
Sea Song
Greensleeves
Piano Music (solo & 2-piano)
Piano Sonata
Toccata: "On the Edge"
March Wind
Donegal - a choral fantasy transcribed for piano
Butterfly in the Breeze
Variations on a Plainsong - piano transcription
Ten Preludes for Piano
Carol Preludes [piano]
Salutation Carol Prelude [piano]
Preludes [piano]
>
3 Preludes for Piano
Papillons
Spanish Folksongs [2 piano version]
Marat/Sade Suite [2-piano transcription]
Drink Old England Dry: a Folksong Frolic for Busy Fingers
Nursery Rhymes Kaleidoscope [2-piano transcription]
Minimalism
Compositions [Vocal]
Edges
Seven Folksong Ballads
Hardy Songs
Choral Music
Advent Carol Succession
>
Advent Carol Succession notes
Songs of Time
Fern Hill
Universal Truth
The Virgin's Song
Nine Welsh Folksong Arrangements
The Jackdaw of Rheims
The Birds’ Mass
Three Motets
My Love in her Attire
Gaudete, gaudete!
Three Hardy Settings for unaccompanied choir
The Cuckoo
In Vernali Tempore
The Willow Song
Dance to your Daddy
Drill, Ye Terriers, Drill
Carol: I Sing of a Maiden
Compositions [chamber/instrumental]
Quintet "magnas inter opes inops"
String Quartet No.1
String Quartet No.2
Austerity
Your Presence [piano/violin]
in memoriam G B
Past Tense
"Conversing with a Silent Marsh Harrier" for string quintet
Five Folksong Arrangements (for the Crucible)
Latin Primer [Septet]
Latin Primer [violin/piano]
Variations on a Plainsong - original version for solo clarinet
Blaydon Races
Folksong Dance Suite for Cello & Piano
Dance to Your Daddy [piano]
Grazioso (guitar solo)
Dorset Suite (guitar duo)
Sonatina for Violin & Piano [1979]
the Cuckoo - 'cello & chamber orchestra
The Phoenix
Compositions [jazz/light]
Funked-up Bach
Basement Jazz
Too Darn Hot
A Dorset Affair
Compositions [Pastiche]
La Ronde
Zartom: Symphony
Hornby: Exultate Jubilate
The case for a National Rehearsal Orchestra for New Music
ARTWORK
Gallery - Room 1 Life Underwater
Gallery - Room 2 Life around us
Gallery - Room 3 [flowers]
Gallery - Room 4 [SEASCAPES & LANDSCAPE]S + Mika]
Rogues gallery....
Pembrokeshire scenes i
Pembrokeshire scenes ii
Durham 'prints'
Picture Dorchester....
Italy October 2010
Paris
Prague
Miscellaneous art works
Poems
We English - a historical rhyme
Touching His Face
Commanded Time
Master of my Fate?
Alas, poor Ludo!
New Co-op Party Anthem
Rick Birley Blog
Hobie Adventure Island
>
Maiden Voyage 12.iii.11
Miscellaneous
Maverick
Compositions [Miscellaneous]
Music Hall for Westfield
60th birthday concert: May 24th 2014 Orchestral Concert
Index
My father's face
[i] 27.v.15
Such stillness, such straining silence,
such gentle sun rising through the mists
of my awoken soul,
ascending with the lark
to the warm-remembered dreams
of supernatural child,
held in time's embrace,
reflected in the wild laughter
of my father's face.
I hear his voice, and suddenly rejoice
as there across the table in that chair
his eyes meet mine.
And in the blinking of his whiskered eye
his impish smile imparts the gift
of his enduring love.
And my heart sings with the lark,
up there, above.
[ii] 27.v.15
My dad rose early with the sun
and descended daily to the rocks
below the house.
Without least element of fun
he dives straight in! And flocks
of oystercatchers take flight
below the house,
wondering, surely wondering
at the sight.
For brief while beneath the waves
my dad is gone.
But reappears! - and from the caves
burst forth rock doves in wild alarm.
In urgent flight they disappear.
And in my mind I still can hear
my dad returning from his swim.
I am not now the half of him....
[iii] 27.v.15
I never knew the child
my father oncetime was.
I never saw his boyhood face,
nor heard the treble of his voice.
Yet in the stillness of this place,
this hallowed house,
this ghost-filled holy space,
why, here I am that child,
the son I oncetime was.
I feel once more the freshness of my face,
and hear again my little childhood voice
raised in laughter,
innocent and free.
The child my father oncetime was
is me. The groaning age
is only what dull strangers see!
[iv] 28.v.15
There came a day, a slate-grey day,
when light grew light
without the morning sun.
No larks rose, no songs begun,
no flight to heaven as only a skylark may.
No oystercatchers probing in the bay,
and no choughs
grubbing in the clay.
No swifts slicing through the dampened air
with scything wings. No 'daws
riding high the clifftop drafts
with skillful flair.
No noisy rooks, nor black crows' raucous caws.
The day stood still and waited.
Thus came this day, ill-fated.
On the rocks again, my dad,
those rocks below the house.
Now vacantly insane, quite mad,
he dived once more and vanished
from my sight
into that dark that is forever night.
Such stillness, such eternal silence
in my house above those rocks,
those rocks below the house
from which my father leapt.
Yet in this aching stillness,
my senses sharpened by the night,
I feel and touch his presense
still.
In this house above the rocks
where I such anguished tears have wept
I see him in the blindness of my sight
as I, my father's lonely child,
have lonely vigil kept.
Once more he blinks his whiskered eye,
once more his impish grin imparts
the gift of his empowering love,
and my heart sings, again,
my soul rides high
with morning lark,
so high up there in dazzling blue above.
[Cae Rhedyn - end of May 2015]
HOME [and contact form]
CONCERT
Rick Birley biography
Compositions [Orchestral works]
Peterloo
Bishops & Clerks
>
The Flow
These Distracted Times
The Rechabite
Sunset Island
Chamber Symphony [No.1] in Five Movements
Symphony No.2 ["little bird"]
Hebrew Songs of Love, Faith & Survival
Piano Concerto
Symphonic Suite for Piano & Orchestra
Tanquam Sponsus [piano & orchestra]
Spanish Folksongs
Chansons de France
A Dorset Rhapsody
Call to Remembrance - a meditation on The Last Post
Nursery Rhymes Kaleidoscope
Latin Primer
Olympian Glories
Sar-planina - a Macedonian folksong
Marat/Sade Suite
>
Marat/Sade notes
Maverick
Variations on a Plainsong
Eight Orchestral Studies
Christmas Exultation
Romney Facets
A Little English Folksong Suite/ The Ploughboy
English Folksong Suite No.2
Movement for String Orchestra "magnas inter opes inops"
Lord of the Dance
Sea Song
Greensleeves
Piano Music (solo & 2-piano)
Piano Sonata
Toccata: "On the Edge"
March Wind
Donegal - a choral fantasy transcribed for piano
Butterfly in the Breeze
Variations on a Plainsong - piano transcription
Ten Preludes for Piano
Carol Preludes [piano]
Salutation Carol Prelude [piano]
Preludes [piano]
>
3 Preludes for Piano
Papillons
Spanish Folksongs [2 piano version]
Marat/Sade Suite [2-piano transcription]
Drink Old England Dry: a Folksong Frolic for Busy Fingers
Nursery Rhymes Kaleidoscope [2-piano transcription]
Minimalism
Compositions [Vocal]
Edges
Seven Folksong Ballads
Hardy Songs
Choral Music
Advent Carol Succession
>
Advent Carol Succession notes
Songs of Time
Fern Hill
Universal Truth
The Virgin's Song
Nine Welsh Folksong Arrangements
The Jackdaw of Rheims
The Birds’ Mass
Three Motets
My Love in her Attire
Gaudete, gaudete!
Three Hardy Settings for unaccompanied choir
The Cuckoo
In Vernali Tempore
The Willow Song
Dance to your Daddy
Drill, Ye Terriers, Drill
Carol: I Sing of a Maiden
Compositions [chamber/instrumental]
Quintet "magnas inter opes inops"
String Quartet No.1
String Quartet No.2
Austerity
Your Presence [piano/violin]
in memoriam G B
Past Tense
"Conversing with a Silent Marsh Harrier" for string quintet
Five Folksong Arrangements (for the Crucible)
Latin Primer [Septet]
Latin Primer [violin/piano]
Variations on a Plainsong - original version for solo clarinet
Blaydon Races
Folksong Dance Suite for Cello & Piano
Dance to Your Daddy [piano]
Grazioso (guitar solo)
Dorset Suite (guitar duo)
Sonatina for Violin & Piano [1979]
the Cuckoo - 'cello & chamber orchestra
The Phoenix
Compositions [jazz/light]
Funked-up Bach
Basement Jazz
Too Darn Hot
A Dorset Affair
Compositions [Pastiche]
La Ronde
Zartom: Symphony
Hornby: Exultate Jubilate
The case for a National Rehearsal Orchestra for New Music
ARTWORK
Gallery - Room 1 Life Underwater
Gallery - Room 2 Life around us
Gallery - Room 3 [flowers]
Gallery - Room 4 [SEASCAPES & LANDSCAPE]S + Mika]
Rogues gallery....
Pembrokeshire scenes i
Pembrokeshire scenes ii
Durham 'prints'
Picture Dorchester....
Italy October 2010
Paris
Prague
Miscellaneous art works
Poems
We English - a historical rhyme
Touching His Face
Commanded Time
Master of my Fate?
Alas, poor Ludo!
New Co-op Party Anthem
Rick Birley Blog
Hobie Adventure Island
>
Maiden Voyage 12.iii.11
Miscellaneous
Maverick
Compositions [Miscellaneous]
Music Hall for Westfield
60th birthday concert: May 24th 2014 Orchestral Concert