Five Songs For Spring:
A song cycle for baritone and piano
(2011)
Poem by Robert Burns
Duration: circa 13.5-14'
Commissioned privately

Publisher:  Novello & Co Ltd

Composer's Note:

This work is in essence a companion piece to my Songs for a Winter’s Evening where the seven poems were chosen so as to create a song cycle describing the "events" in the life of a woman, from the flirtatious young girl, to the young woman betrayed, to her eventual fulfillment in mature love which has lasted many a year. Here the five poems are chosen to describe a man’s viewpoint, from raunchy, to sadness as lovers are forced to part, to true love where a young lover sings of “the lassie he loves the best”.

This commission has once again caused me to revisit my Scottish heritage. As much as this heritage is inevitably part of my life, so, in this work, the tunes to which Burns wrote his inimitable poems are embedded in the musical texture — sometimes in the foreground, sometimes in the background.

What is perhaps not generally known is that Burns wrote his words to existing tunes in order to preserve them. In the words of an anonymous writer in the Introduction to the Collins Gem BURNS Anthology: “He (Burns) laboured (unpaid) to supply ‘words and music’ for the collections of James Johnson and George Thomson. In a very real sense Burns was as great a musician as he was a poet. He dedicated himself to rescuing from oblivion and neglect hundreds of songs without words – or with fragmentary or unsuitable words. He knew that a song without words dies. In supplying words to fit the melodies, he performed a feat unique in the history of art. And the fact that he produced some hundreds of songs in his Dumfries days is a noble tribute to his unflagging energy and dedicated labour."

The challenge facing me was how to integrate Burns' 18th century world with our own, both emotionally and musically. Musically this meant finding a melodic and harmonic language, that, though recognizing and incorporating the original tunes, would nevertheless be heard from a contemporary viewpoint. The past can only ever be revisited with our own contemporary imagination and sensibility.
 

                          I
When first I came to Stewart Kyle
             My mind it was nae steady,
Where e’er I gaed, where e’er I rade,
             A mistress still I had ay:
But when I came roun’ by Mauchlin town,
             Not dreadin’ any body
My heart was caught before I thought
             And by a Mauchlin lady.

                                  II
Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise;
My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

How pleasant thy banks and green vallies below,
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow;
There oft as mild ev’ning weeps over the lea,
The sweet scented birk shades my Mary and me.

Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides;
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,
As gath’ring sweet flow’rets she stems thy clear wave.

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise.

                                   III
Twa bony lads were Sandy and Jockie;
Jockie was lov’d but Sandy unlucky,
Jockie was Laird baith of hills and of vallies,
But Sandy was nought but the king o’ gude fellows.
Jockie lov’d Madgie, for Madgie had money;
And Sandie lov’d Mary, for Mary was bonny:
              Ane wedded for love,
              Ane wedded for treasure,
              So Jockie had siller,
              And Sandy had pleasure.

                        IV
Ae fond kiss and then we sever;
Ae farewell and then forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.

Had we never lov’d sae kindly,
Had we never lov’d sae blindly,
Never met – or never parted,
We had ne’er been broken hearted.

Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, Enjoyment, Love and Pleasure!

Ae fond kiss and then we sever;
Ae farewell, alas, forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.


                       V
Of a’the airts the wind can blaw,
              I dearly like the west,
For there the bonnie lassie lives,
              The lassie I lo’e best:
There wild-woods grow, and rivers row,
              And mony a hill between;
But day and night my fancy’s flight
              Is ever wi’my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers,
              I see her sweet and fair;
I hear her in the tunefu’ birds,
              I hear her charm the air:
There’s not a bonny flower that springs
              By fountain, shaw, or green,
There’s not a bonny bird that sings
              But minds me o’ my Jean.

                   - Robert Burns [1759–96]

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