TeSALLEYGARDENSA TREASURY OF ENGLISH SONG

YVONNE KENNY

CAROLINE ALMONTE pianoCAROLINE ALMONTE piano

YVONNE KENNY476 158-1

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The Salley Gardens

A Treasury of English Song

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TRAD. arr. PHYLLIS TATE 1911-19851 The Lark in the Clear Air 1’40

TRAD. arr. BENJAMIN BRITTEN 1913-19762 The Salley Gardens 2’11

TRAD. arr. HERBERT HUGHES 1882-19373 She Moved thro’ the Fair 3’00

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS 1872-19584 Linden Lea 2’05

ROGER QUILTER 1877-19535 Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal 1’54

GUSTAV HOLST 1874-19346 The Heart Worships 3’43

FRANK BRIDGE 1879-19417 Come to me in my Dreams 3’19

FRANK BRIDGE8 Love Went a-Riding 1’33

ARNOLD BAX 1883-19539 Rann of Exile 3’09

TRAD. arr. BENJAMIN BRITTEN0 How Sweet the Answer 1’59

TRAD. arr. BENJAMIN BRITTEN! O Waly, Waly 3’49

TRAD. arr. BENJAMIN BRITTEN@ I Will Give my Love an Apple 1’16

TRAD. arr. ROGER QUILTER£ Believe me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms 2’02

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RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS$ Silent Noon 4’10

IVOR GURNEY 1890-1937% Sleep 2’33

EDWARD ELGAR 1857-1934^ Like to the Damask Rose 3’08

ROGER QUILTER& Love’s Philosophy 1’23

PETER WARLOCK 1894-1930* Sleep 1’59

FREDERICK DELIUS 1862-1934( Twilight Fancies 3’24

FREDERICK DELIUS) Young Venevil 1’48

TRAD. arr. ROGER QUILTER¡ Barbara Allen 3’20

TRAD. arr. BENJAMIN BRITTEN™ The Ash Grove 2’19

ALICIA SPOTTISWOODE 1810-1900# Annie Laurie 2’47

TRAD. arr. HERBERT HUGHES¢ I Know Where I’m Goin’ 1’57

TRAD. arr. BENJAMIN BRITTEN∞ The Minstrel Boy 1’49

Total Playing Time 62’19

Yvonne Kenny sopranoCaroline Almonte piano

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Neville Cardus once wrote that ‘music is not alanguage we English speak from the heart’,pointing out that ‘we have produced no Berlioz,no Chopin, no Debussy, no Schönberg, noStravinsky.’ Perhaps not. But England did produceBritten, Vaughan Williams, Holst, Quilter andother marvellous exponents of song, as provedby this collection. And of all music, surely songspeaks most directly from the heart. Many of thesongs in the Treasury are based on folk tunes,others are inspired by the great English poets.Despite a reputation for insularity, these Englishcomposers often mine the traditions of othercountries for material, particularly Ireland. If weare searching for a model of English identity,perhaps the subject matter can provide a clue.The Treasury covers love in all its incarnations:lost love, dead love, false love and (lessfrequently) true love. There is also a recurringlove of nature – unsurprising, given the Englishtradition of nature poets – and several referencesto sleep. On the evidence of this collection, theEnglish would seem a nature-loving race, unluckyin love, who hanker for a good night’s rest.

Phyllis Tate provides one familiar model ofEnglishness: the eccentric. Expelled from schoolat the age of ten for writing lewd verse, sheeducated herself on the ukulele, before enrollingat the Royal Academy of Music. The Lark in the

Clear Air represents Tate at her finest.Composed in 1960, it is based on a text bySamuel Ferguson which speaks of that most

delicious phase of love: anticipation. Tate oncewrote that ‘writing music can be hell; torture inthe extreme; but there’s one thing worse; andthat is not writing it.’ There is little evidence ofhell in ‘The Lark in the Clear Air’. Inspired by atraditional Irish air, it unfolds with quiet exhilaration,and with all the inevitability of folk music.

Folk music also provided a life-long inspirationfor Benjamin Britten. He eschewed the English‘folk song school’ of Vaughan Williams andcolleagues, considering it amateurish, anddeclared in 1943 (fittingly for a pacifist) that‘nationalism is an anachronistic irrelevance.’ And yet he suffered from a keen homesicknessduring his American sojourn from 1939 to 1942,and began his arrangements of folk song.Between 1945 and 1976, Britten publishedseven volumes of folk song settings. There is aFrench volume and an Irish volume, but many ofthe others do articulate a type of Englishidentity. Folk song is perhaps an intrinsicallynostalgic genre: it speaks for the past generally,but it also speaks of individual pasts – of loveslost, of lessons learnt. Britten frames his choiceswith a wary nostalgia. They are fond arrangements,and deftly crafted, with the occasional astringencyto tone avoiding any cloying sentiment.

The Salley Gardens is an Irish tune, with textby William Butler Yeats. It belongs to the firstvolume of Britten’s arrangements, from 1945,and is dedicated to the Australian-born singer,

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Clytie Mundy, who taught Britten’s companion,Peter Pears, while they were in America. If ‘TheLark in the Clear Air’ was the ‘before’ story oflove, then this is the ‘after’. Our narrator, while‘full of tears’, is philosophical, which ishighlighted by the piano’s tonic-dominant-tonic:‘such is life’ (while falling apart on the inside, inthe best tradition of British stoicism). Britten’sThe Ash Grove also hails from the first volume,and is an ingenious arrangement of a Welshsong. The piano illustrates various surfaceaspects of the poem – the blackbird’s song, forinstance – while also charting its emotionaljourney. The sweetness of the piano’scounterpoint in the first verse only highlights thepain of what is to come: the dissonant present ofthe second verse, in which the loved one isrevealed to be six foot under: ‘She sleeps ‘neaththe green turf’. O Waly, Waly belongs to the thirdvolume of songs, published in 1947. It is basedon a Somerset folk song, collected by CecilSharp, and describes the impasse of unrequitedlove, over an inexorable, rowing accompaniment.

How Sweet the Answer and The Minstrel Boy

make up part of Britten’s fourth collection, whichwas premiered by Britten and Pears in 1957, andis based on Thomas Moore’s ‘Irish Melodies’ andBunting’s ‘Ancient Music of Ireland’. In ‘HowSweet the Answer’, we finally experience lovewith a happy ending: it ‘breathes back again’(and again and again ...). As a song making thecase that love is better than music, its

seductiveness undermines its argument. ‘TheMinstrel Boy’ begins with a hint of bombast, andcould be Britten’s own pacifist anthem. Itconcludes with memories of a harp beingplucked, and the message that music will notsuccumb to oppression.

I Will Give my Love an Apple forms part of thesixth volume of arrangements, composedoriginally for guitar accompaniment, inspired byJulian Bream. Britten could be scathing aboutVaughan Williams, claiming once that ‘hisartificial mysticism combined with, what seemsto me, technical incompetence, sends me crazy.’These reservations did not stop him, however,from mining Vaughan Williams’ and Hammond’s‘Folksongs for Schools’ for this sixth volume. Thesong is epigrammatic in nature, with shades ofYeats’ ‘He wishes for the cloths of heavens’. Thesimplicity of the accompaniment reflects thenarrator’s own humble promise: he has nothingbut offers everything.

Herbert Hughes was an Irish-born but English-trained composer, who played a significant rolein the Irish Cultural Revival, collecting more thana thousand Gaelic folk songs. She Moved thro’

the Fair is based on a traditional Gaelic air, withwords by Hughes’ long-term collaborator, PadraicColum, who was a close friend of James Joyce.The song is deceptive, and might seem at first tobe pleasant Victorian parlour music, if not for amixolydian hint of something to come. Neither

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Hughes nor Colum spell anything out, and thesong’s extreme potency stems from itsinsinuative qualities. (There is an optional versethat articulates the narrative a little more clearly.)A shadow falls over the third verse, all the moreeerie for not being explained: this really is the‘after’ story of love, and suddenly we’re dealingwith a ghost in denial. Hughes’ I Know Where

I’m Goin’, meanwhile, is a song of affirmation,and unusual in its subject of an assertive youngwoman. Regardless of who she marries, ouryoung narrator has a better idea than most of herown mind, and her own heart.

Alongside songs of love lost, it comes as a reliefto hear Linden Lea, which speaks of nothing morespine-tingling than the English countryside.Vaughan Williams was a leader of the Englishmusic revival, along with Holst, and spent a goodpart of his time collecting folk song. ‘Linden Lea’ isbased on a text by William Barnes, ‘My Orcha’d inLinden Lea’, from ‘Hwomely Rhymes: a SecondCollection of Poems in the Dorset Dialect’. It is adefiantly wholesome celebration of the simplelife: of the English countryside, and the freedomthat such a life engenders. Vaughan Williamsexperiences love as a mutual appreciation ofnature in the pastoral Silent Noon of 1903, asetting of a poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It is asong of contentment, that – like its lover’s eyes – ‘smiles peace’. Vaughan Williams somehowsucceeds in writing a song that, paradoxically,celebrates silence.

Cardus describes Roger Quilter as a composerof the ‘drawing-room lyric de luxe’. And indeedNow Sleeps the Crimson Petal does unfold witha luxurious appreciation of the verse. Composedin 1904, it was among the first of more than ahundred songs Quilter published, beforesuccumbing to mental illness (a curiouslyrecurrent theme amongst our English song-writers). The acclaimed tenor Gervase Elwes wasso taken with ‘Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal’,that he arranged its publication with Boosey, andchampioned Quilter’s works for the rest of his life,until his untimely death in a train crash. Based ona poem by Tennyson, it unites two ongoingconcerns of English song – love and nature – andattempts courtship through natural analogy.Quilter’s setting of Love’s Philosophy by Shelley,of 1905, operates with a similar strategy. Thesong sparkles and bubbles so infectiously withthe dance of life that the loved one could scarcelyrefuse to join in. Believe me, if All Those

Endearing Young Charms was published as partof the ‘Arnold Book of Old Songs’ of 1947, and isbased on a poem by Thomas Moore. It is anaffecting profession of true love, and a promise offidelity that all would like to hear: that we will beloved as much as ever when we are but a ‘dearruin’. In Barbara Allen, a traditional folk song,Quilter laces folk cadences with a languidchromaticism. The song provides a cautionary talefor wayward young females who heartlessly leadmen on, with the usual folk song carnage ofdeath from love and regret.

Warlock, who wrote that ‘music is neither oldnor modern: it is either good or bad music, andthe date at which it was written has nosignificance whatsoever.’

Edward Elgar is the elder statesman of thecomposers surveyed on this disc, and thetowering legacy against which members of theyounger generation strove to define themselves.His songs constitute a minor part of his output,which was more orchestral, and indeed Like to

the Damask Rose operates with a symphonicsweep. Composed in 1892, it is a setting of apoem by the obscure Simon Wastell, a 17th-century headmaster, best known for his‘Microbiblion’, a rhyming Bible for his youngcharges. ‘Like to the Damask Rose’ is notBiblical, but perhaps suggests ‘Ecclesiastes’ inits passionate declamation of entropy.

Frederick Delius claimed that ‘nothing is sowonderful as elemental feeling; nothing is morewonderful in art than elemental feelingexpressed intensely.’ And how better to expresselemental feeling than through song? Deliusdisliked England, and through his art injected amulticulturalism into English music: his naturalinspirations ranged from Scandinavia to Florida.Twilight Fancies and Young Venevil come fromhis set of 1892, ‘Seven Songs from theNorwegian,’ based on text by BjørnstjerneBjørnson. Each song unfolds in an atmosphereof enchantment, and takes a woman as its

subject. In ‘Twilight Fancies’, a princess ‘can’tget no satisfaction’, while in ‘Young Venevil’ anenthusiastic young female pursues a flightymale. ‘Twilight Fancies’ was orchestrated bothby Delius and his long-term fan ThomasBeecham, who wrote, ‘I cannot do other thanregard [Delius] as the last apostle in our time ofromance, emotion and beauty in music.’

The words for Annie Laurie were written at theend of the 17th century by William Douglas ofFingland, a soldier in the Royal Scots regiment,who took a shine to the younger Annie Laurie,of Maxwelton House. The tune of the present-day version was composed by AliciaSpottiswoode, or Lady John Scott, and unfoldswith great earnestness. The sequel to the songis interesting. Douglas assures Annie Laurie thathe would ‘lay me doun and dee’ for her, butoutside the folk song there was no need foranyone to ‘dee’, really. Despite Douglas’savowals of undying love, he later eloped with an heiress: an act that did not particularly appearto faze Annie, who subsequently married inEdinburgh. Such fickleness on the parts of theprotagonists, however, did not stop ‘AnnieLaurie’ from becoming the most famous ofScottish love-songs, and a favourite of Scotsoldiers during the Crimean war.

Anna Goldsworthy

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Gustav Holst leaves these earthly concernsbehind, in his The Heart Worships, with text byAlice M. Buckton. As in Vaughan Williams’ ‘SilentNoon’ it sets itself the unenviable task ofrepresenting silence in song. This however is notthe mutual silence of contented love, but cosmicsilence. The singer addresses God, framed byaustere chordal textures in the piano part. Itrepresents the spiritual, transcendental side ofthe composer, who spent much of his musicallife gazing at the heavens, and whosepantheistic oeuvre contains works based oninfluences from Hinduism to English folk song.

Come to me in my Dreams by Frank Bridgespeaks an unashamedly romantic language oflonging. Once more our subject is lost love andnight-time visitations. Bridge is perhaps bestknown today as Britten’s perspicacious teacher,who recognised his young charge’s genius – andfor whom Britten later composed his ‘Variationson a Theme by Frank Bridge’. Bridge underwenta stylistic sea-change in the 1920s, but ‘Come tome’, composed in 1906, still speaks in his early,neo-romantic language, as he invests MatthewArnold’s poem with operatic drama. Love Went

a-Riding dates from eight years later, andunfolds with an even greater command. Basedon a poem by Mary Coleridge (great grand-nieceof Samuel Taylor) it unfolds exultantly, revelling inlove’s omnipotence and waywardness. Bridgepairs a virtuoso piano part with an ecstatic,almost Wagnerian vocal line.

Sir Arnold Bax’s Rann of Exile announces aclimate change. Bax enjoyed a lifelong sympathyfor Irish subjects, and the spare textures of‘Rann of Exile’ speak of the exile’s condition.Based on a text by Padraic Colum, the lonelypiano line charts the exile’s exterior condition,while the voice reflects his inner despair.

Ivor Gurney’s Sleep reaches out to sleep forrespite. One of the most sensitive word-settersin the English language, Gurney was a poet andcomposer, whose illustrious promise came to anend when he was declared insane in 1922.Nonetheless, he composed more than 300songs, and ‘Sleep’ is an example of his finely-wrought art. Based on a text by John Fletcher,from ‘The Woman Hater’ of 1607, it opens with arocking lullaby motion, and reveals expert word-painting. It is interesting to compare Gurney’streatment of this poem to that of his near-contemporary Peter Warlock, a.k.a. PhilipHeseltine. Warlock was a colourful figure, whomakes a cameo (and unflattering) appearance inD.H. Lawrence’s ‘Women in Love’. His version ofSleep operates more chromatically thanGurney’s, but in both versions, sleep bringsredemption: each piece ends with a tierce dePicardie, the major chord with which everyinsomniac is familiar. Warlock’s ‘Sleep’ wascomposed in 1922, the year Gurney wasdeclared insane, and eight years beforeWarlock’s own premature death from suicide –though such chronologies would mean little to

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She Moved thro’ the Fair

My young love said to me, ‘My mother won’t mindAnd my father won’t slight you for your lack of kind,’And she stepp’d away from me and this she did say: ‘It will not be long, love, till our wedding day.’

She stepp’d away from me and she went thro’ the fair,And fondly I watch’d her move here and move there,And then she went homeward with one star awake,As the swan in the evening moves over the lake.

Last night she came to me, she came softly in, So softly she came that her feet made no din,And she laid her hand on me and this she did say:‘It will not be long, love, till our wedding day.’

Padraic Colum

Linden Lea

Within the woodlands, flow’ry gladed,By the oak trees’ mossy moot,The shining grass blades, timber shaded,Now do quiver under foot;And birds do whistle overhead,And water’s bubbling in its bed;And there, for me, the apple treeDo lean down low in Linden Lea.

When leaves, that lately were a-springing,Now do fade within the copse,And painted birds do hush their singing,Up upon the timber tops;And brown leaved fruit’s a-turning red,In cloudless sunshine overhead,

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The Lark in the Clear Air

Dear thoughts are in my mind, and my soul soars enchantedAs I hear the sweet lark sing in the clear air of the day.For a tender beaming smile to my hope has been granted,And tomorrow she shall hear all my fond heart would say.

I shall tell her all my love, all my soul’s adoration,And I think she will hear and will not say me nay.It is this that gives my soul all its joyous elation,As I hear the sweet lark sing in the clear air of the day.

Samuel Ferguson

The Salley Gardens

Down by the Salley gardensMy love and I did meet,She passed the Salley gardensWith little snow-white feet.She bid me take love easyAs the leaves grow on the tree,But I, being young and foolish,With her did not agree.

In a field by the riverMy love and I did stand,And on my leaning shoulderShe laid her snow-white hand.She bid me take life easyAs the grass grows on the weirs,But I was young and foolish,And now am full of tears.

William Butler Yeats

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Love Went a-Riding

Love went a-riding,Love went a-riding over the earth,On Pegasus he rode.

The flowers before him sprang to birth,And the frozen rivers flowed.Then all the youths and the maidens cried,‘Stay here with us.’ ‘King of Kings.’But Love said, ‘No! for the horse I ride,For the horse I ride has wings.’

Love went a-riding,Love went a-riding over the earth,On Pegasus he rode.

Mary E. Coleridge

Rann of Exile

Nor right, nor left, nor any road I see a comrade face,Nor a word to lift the heart in me I hear in any place,They leave me, who pass by me to my lonelinessand careWithout a house to draw my steps nor a hearth that I might share!

O con! Before our people knew the scattering of the dearth,Before they saw potatoes rot and melt black in the earth,I might have stood in Connacht, on the top ofCruachmaelinn,And all around me I would see the hundreds of my kin.

Padraic Colum

How Sweet the Answer

How sweet the answer Echo makesTo music at night;When, rous’d by lute or horn she wakesAnd far away, o’er lawns and lakes,Goes answering light.

Yet love hath echoes truer far,And far more sweet,Than e’er beneath the moonlight’s star,Of horn, or lute, or soft guitar,The songs repeat.

‘Tis when the sigh, in youth sincere,And only then,The sigh, that’s breath’d for one to hear,Is by that one, that only dear,Breath’d back again.

Anonymous

O Waly, Waly

The water is wide I cannot get o’er,And neither have I wings to fly.Give me a boat that will carry two,And both shall row, my love and I.

O, down in the meadows the other day,A-gath’ring flowers both fine and gay,A-gath’ring flowers both red and blue,I little thought what love can do.

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With fruit for me, the apple treeDo lean down low in Linden Lea.

Let other folk make money faster,In the air of dark-room’d towns;I don’t dread a peevish master,Though no man may heed my frowns.I be free to go abroad,Or take again my homeward road,To where, for me, the apple treeDo lean down low in Linden Lea.

William Barnes

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;Nor winks the gold fin in the porph’ry font:The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,And slips into the bosom of the lake:So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slipInto my bosom and be lost in me.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Heart Worships

Silence in Heav’nSilence on EarthSilence within!Thy hush, O Lord,O’er all the world covers the din.I do not fear to speak of thee in mortal kindAnd yet to all thy namelessness I am not blind.

Only I need and kneel againThy touch to win;Silence in Heav’nSilence on EarthSilence within!

Alice M. Buckton

Come to me in my Dreams

Come to me in my dreams, and thenBy day I shall be well again!For then the night will more than payThe hopeless longing of the day.

Come! as thou cam’st a thousand timesA messenger from radiant climes,And smile on thy new world, and beAs kind to all the rest as me.

Or, as thou never cam’st in sooth,Come now, and let me dream it truth.And part my hair, and kiss my brow,And say, ‘My love! why suff’rest thou?’

Come to me in my dreams, and thenBy day I shall be well again!For then the night will more than payThe hopeless longing of the day.

Matthew Arnold

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Sleep

Come, sleep, and with thy sweet deceivingLock me in delight awhile;Let some pleasing dream beguileAll my fancies, that from thenceI may feel an influence,All my powers of care bereaving.

Tho’ but a shadow, but a sliding,Let me know some little joy.We, that suffer long annoy,Are contented with a thoughtThro’ an idle fancy wrought:O let my joys have some abiding.

John Fletcher

Like to the Damask Rose

Like to the damask rose you see,Or like the blossom on the tree,Or like a dainty flow’r of May,Or like the morning of the day,Or like the sun, or like the shade,Or like the gourd which Jonas had;E’en such is man whose thread is spun,Drawn out and cut, and so is done.

The rose withers, the blossom blasteth,The flower fades, the morning hasteth,The sun sets, the shadow flies,The gourd consumes, the man he dies.

Like to the grass that’s newly sprung;Or like a tale that’s new begun;Or like a bird that’s here today;Or like the pearled dew of May;

Or like an hour, or like a span;Or like the singing of a swan;E’en such is man, who lives by breathIs here, now there, in life and death.

The grass withers, the tale is ended,The bird is flown, the dew’s ascended;The hour is short; the span not long,The swan’s near death, man’s life is done!

Simon Wastell

Love’s Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river And the Rivers with the Ocean,The winds of Heav’n mix foreverWith a sweet emotion;Nothing in the world is single;All things by a law divineIn one another’s being mingle.Why not I with thine? Not I with thine?

See, the mountains kiss high Heav’nAnd the waves clasp one another;No sister-flower would be forgiv’nIf it disdained its brother;And the sunlight clasps the earthAnd the moonbeams kiss the sea:What are all these kissings worthIf thou kiss not me?

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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I leaned my back up against some oakThinking that he was a trusty tree;But first he bended, and then he broke;And so did my false love to me.

A ship there is, and she sails the sea,She’s loaded deep as deep can be,But not so deep as the love I’m in:I know not if I sink or swim.

O! love is handsome and love is fine,And love’s a jewel while it is new;But when it is old, it groweth cold,And fades away like morning dew.

Anonymous

I Will Give my Love an Apple

I will give my love an apple without e’er a core,

I will give my love a house without e’er a door,

I will give my love a palace wherein she may be,

And she may unlock it without any key.

My head is the apple without e’er a core,

My mind is the house without e’er a door,

My heart is the palace wherein she may be,

And she may unlock it without any key.

Anonymous

Believe me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms

Believe me, if all those endearing young charmsWhich I gaze on so fondly today,Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,Like fairy gifts fading away,

Thou would’st still be ador’d, as this moment thou art,Let thy loveliness fade as it will,And around the dear ruin each wish of my heartWould entwine itself verdantly still.

It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,And thy cheeks unprofan’d by a tear,That the fervour and faith of a soul can be known,To which time will but make thee more dear:Nor the heart that has truly lov’d never forgets,But as truly loves on to the close,As the sunflow’r turns on her god, when he sets,The same look which she turn’d when he rose.

Thomas Moore

Silent Noon

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams andglooms‘Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,Are golden kingcup fields with silver edgeWhere the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn hedge.‘Tis visible silence, still as the hourglass.

Deep in the sunsearch’d growths the dragon-flyHangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:So this wing’d hour is dropt to us from above.Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,This close-companion’d inarticulate hourWhen twofold silence was the song of love.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

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All in the merry month of MayWhen green buds they were swellin’,Young Jemmy Grove on his death-bed layFor love of Barb’ra Allen.

Then slowly, slowly she came up,And slowly she came nigh him,And all she said when there she came‘Young man, I think you’re dying.’

As she was walking o’er the fieldsShe heard the dead-bell knellin’,And ev’ry stroke the dead-bell gaveCried ‘Woe to Barb’ra Allen!’

When he was dead and laid in graveHer heart was struck with sorrow.‘O mother, mother, make my bed,For I shall die tomorrow.’

‘Farewell,’ she said, ‘ye virgins all,And shun the fault I fell in;Henceforth take warning by the fallOf cruel Barb’ra Allen.’

Anonymous

The Ash Grove

Down yonder green valley where streamlets meander,When twilight is fading, I pensively rove,Or at the bright noontide in solitude wanderAmid the dark shades of the lonely ash grove.‘Twas there while the blackbird was joyfully singing,I first met my dear one, the joy of my heart;Around us for gladness the bluebells were ringing,Ah! then little thought I how soon we should part.

Still glows the bright sunshine o’er valley and mountain,Still warbles the blackbird his note from the tree,Still trembles the moonbeam on streamlet and fountain;But what are the beauties of nature to me?With sorrow, deep sorrow, my bosom is laden,All day I go mourning in search of my love.Ye echoes, O tell me, where is the sweet maiden?She sleeps ‘neath the green turf down by the ash grove.

Anonymous

Annie Laurie

Maxwelton Braes are bonnie

Where early fa’s the dew,

And it’s there that Annie Laurie

Gi’ed me her promise true,

Gi’ed me her promise true

Which ne’er forgot will be,

And for bonnie Annie Laurie

I’d lay me doun and dee.

Like dew on the gowan lying

is the fa’ o’ her fairy feet

And like winds in summer sighing,

Her voice is low and sweet.

Her voice is low and sweet,

And she’s a’ the world to me

And for bonnie Annie LaurieI’d lay me doun and dee.

William Douglas

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Sleep

Come, sleep, and with thy sweet deceivingLock me in delight awhile;Let some pleasing dream beguileAll my fancies, that from thenceI may feel an influence,All my powers of care bereaving.

Tho’ but a shadow, but a sliding,Let me know some little joy.We, that suffer long annoy,Are contented with a thoughtThro’ an idle fancy wrought:O let my joys have some abiding.

John Fletcher

Twilight Fancies

The Princess look’d forth from her maiden bow’rThe horn of a herd boy rang up from below.‘Oh, cease from thy playing, and haunt me no more,Nor fetter my fancy that freely would soar,When the sun goes down, when the sun goes down.’

The Princess look’d forth from her maiden bow’rBut mute was the horn that had call’d from below.‘Oh, why art thou silent? Beguile me once more.Give wings to my fancy that freely would soar,When the sun goes down, when the sun goes down.’

The Princess look’d forth from her maiden bow’rThe call of the horn rose again from below.She wept in the twilight and bitterly sighed:

‘What is it I long for, what is it I long for? God helpme!’ she cried.And the sun went down, and the sun went down.

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

translated F. S. Copeland

Young Venevil

Young Venevil ran with her heart on fireTo her lover so dear, to her lover so dear,She sang till she made all the church bells ring‘Good day, good day, good day, good day!’And all the little song birds made answer to her song:‘Midsummer’s day for laughter and play.Take care little Venevil, your garland’s going astray.’

She wove him a garland of flowers blue:‘As my eyes so blue, my love for you’;He took it, and tossed it o’er the hill:‘Farewell my sweet, my sweet, farewell!’He laughed and ran like lightning, you hear hislaughter still:‘Midsummer days for laughter and play.Take care, little Venevil, your garland’s gone astray.’

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

translated Peter Pears

Barbara Allen

In Scarlet Town, where I was born,There was a fair maid dwellin’,Made ev’ry youth cry ‘Well-a-day!’Her name was Barb’ra Allen.

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I Know Where I’m Goin’

I know where I’m goin’And I know who’s goin’ with me,I know who I loveBut the dear knows who I’ll marry!

I have stockings of silk,Shoes of fine green leather,Combs to buckle my hair,And a ring for every finger.

Some say he’s black, But I say he’s bonny,The fairest of them all,My handsome Johnny.

Feather beds are soft, And painted rooms are bonny,But I would leave them allTo go with my love Johnny.

I know where I’m goin’And I know who’s goin’ with me,I know who I loveBut the dear knows who I’ll marry!

Anonymous

The Minstrel Boy

The Minstrel Boy to the war is goneIn the ranks of death you’ll find him;His father’s sword he has girded on,And his wild harp slung behind him.‘Land of Song,’ said the warrior bard,‘Tho’ all the world betrays thee,One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,One faithful harp shall praise thee.’

The Minstrel fell! but the foeman’s chainCould not bring that proud soul under,The harp he lov’d ne’er spoke again,For he tore its chords asunder;And said, ‘No chain shall sully thee,Thou soul of love and brav’ry!Thy songs were made for the pure and free,They shall never sound in slav’ry.’

Anonymous

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(Sydney Symphony), and a gala concert with BrynTerfel at the Leeuwin Estate Winery inWestern Australia, televised nationally on theAustralian Broadcasting Corporation. She hasalso undertaken national tours for theAustralian Chamber Orchestra and Musica Vivaand performed the Olympic Anthem at the closingceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

Her extensive discography includes Mozart’s Lenozze di Figaro (Decca/Georg Solti); DieEntführung aus dem Serail, Mitridate and LucioSilla (Teldec/Nicholas Harnoncourt); Elgar’s TheKingdom (RCA/Leonard Slatkin); Stravinsky’sPulcinella (Sony/Esa-Pekka Salonen); Gloriana(Decca/Charles Mackerras); Handel’s Deborah(Hyperion/Robert King) and most recently, DerRosenkavalier and Great Operatic Arias (bothChandos/David Parry). She is internationallyrecognised for her recordings of French andItalian ‘bel canto’ repertoire for Opera Raraincluding the award-winning Emilia di Liverpooland was the voice of Dame Nellie Melba in theTV mini-series.

Yvonne Kenny has made several recordings inAustralia for ABC Classics. Her 1994 release,Simple Gifts, a selection of popular songs andarias, became one of the highest sellingclassical discs in Australia, and was awardedthe 1995 Australian Record Industry Association(ARIA) Award for Best Classical Release.Other recordings for ABC Classics includeSomething Wonderful; Handel Arias with the

Australian Brandenburg Orchestra (awarded the1998 ARIA Award for Best Classical Release);a collection of Christmas music titled AChristmas Gift; and A Portrait of Yvonne Kenny.Yvonne Kenny has also recorded a recital disc ofFrench song with accompanist MalcolmMartineau, and a collection of Mozart arias withthe Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Yvonne Kenny was made a Member of theOrder of Australia for services to music in 1989and in 1999 was conferred an honoraryDoctorate of Music by the University of Sydney.

Caroline Almonte

Born in Melbourne, CarolineAlmonte commenced her musicstudies at the age of four withthe Yamaha Music Foundation.She studied with renownedAustralian pianist Stephen

McIntyre whilst completing her education atUniversity High School and the Victorian Collegeof the Arts.

As both soloist and chamber musician, CarolineAlmonte has been the recipient of many awardsin Australia and overseas, including winner ofthe Keyboard section of the ABC YoungPerformers Awards, the Frances Quinn ArtsEncouragement Award, the Hephzibah MenuhinAward, International Gaudeamus competition for20th-century interpreters and, with violinist MikiTsunoda, first prize at the International Chamber

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Yvonne Kenny

Yvonne Kenny is one of the mostdistinguished sopranos of her generation.Born in Sydney, she made her operatic debut in1975 in the title role of Donizetti’s Rosmondad’Inghilterra at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Afterwinning the Kathleen Ferrier Competition shejoined the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden,where her roles have included Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Ilia (Idomeneo), Marzelline(Fidelio), Oscar (Un ballo in maschera),Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Adina (L’Elisird’amore), Liù (Turandot), Aspasia (Mitridate, rè di Ponto) and Donna Anna (Don Giovanni).

She has built herself an enviable internationalreputation as a dazzling interpreter of Handel’ssoprano roles, particularly the title roles inSemele and Alcina (Covent Garden, La Fenice,Venice, Opéra de Nancy et de Lorraine); Romildain Xerxes (English National Opera, both inLondon and on tour to the USSR, and BayerischeStaatsoper); Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare andArmida in Rinaldo (Opera Australia, winning aGreen Room Award for the former); and the titlerole in Deborah (BBC Promenade concerts).

Yvonne Kenny’s international operaticappearances include performances at theWiener Staatsoper (Susanna, Cinna in Lucio Silla,the Countess in Capriccio, Marschallin in DerRosenkavalier); La Scala, Milan (Pamina);Deutsche Staatsoper, Berlin (Countess

in Capriccio, the title role in La Didone); Operade Paris (Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni); SanFrancisco Opera (Marschallin, the title role inThe Merry Widow), Hamburg (Oscar); EnglishNational Opera (Marschallin, Titania in The FairyQueen, Alice Ford in Falstaff ); Zurich andGlyndebourne (Donna Elvira, Alice Ford),Minnesota Opera (Marschallin), Washington Operaand Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich (theCountess in Le nozze di Figaro), the GarsingtonFestival (Christine in Intermezzo), the GöttingenHandel Festival and in North America withNicholas McGegan (the title role in Alcina), andthe New Zealand International Festival of theArts (Marschallin). She returns frequently toher native Australia where she has sung Gilda(Rigoletto), Pamina, Susanna, Alcina, Massenet’sManon, Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Cleopatra, AliceFord, Countess (Capriccio), and the title roles inMaria Stuarda, L’incoronazione di Poppea andThe Gypsy Princess.

Yvonne Kenny appears regularly on the concertplatform throughout Europe and North Americaand has appeared at the Edinburgh, Salzburgand Aix-en-Provence Festivals, in Carnegie Halland is a regular guest at the BBC Promenadeconcerts. She was the first artist to give anofficial performance at the newly reopenedRoyal Opera House. Major Australian concertengagements include Strauss’ Four Last Songs(West Australian Symphony Orchestra), the worldpremiere of Ross Edwards’ Symphony No. 2

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Kennerton Green

Of all the large gardens in Australia,Kennerton Green at Mittagong in the NewSouth Wales Southern Highlands isrecognised as one of Australia’s mostromantic gardens. Over more than 50 years,Kennerton Green has undergone a majortransformation, while retaining much of theoriginal cottage-garden ambience. OwnerMarylyn Abbott has cleverly combinedformality and style in a series of architecturalgarden rooms.

The Rose Garden is hidden by tall enclosinggreen hedges and has been featured ingarden books and magazines worldwide. It isa collection of soft coloured roses framing along reflecting pool filled with sacred koi. TheBay Tree Garden is entered through a birdcage tunnel and is a modern geometricparterre of eighty one bay trees topiariedaround regimented beds full of white flowers– an annual parade commencing with tulips,shasta daisies, aquilegias, penstemons and,finally, lilies – a breathtaking sight in lateDecember. The Woodlands consists ofhundreds of birch trees with pure whitetrunks which are carpeted by blue bells in

early October with tall white iris in thebirdcage lake. As summer comes rugosaroses hug the sides and water lilies cover thepond’s surface creating a feeling of peace inthis woodland – named ‘Una’s Wood’ inmemory of the owner’s mother. The Lake isbordered by hundreds of shell pink beardediris and, swagged in old pink and white roses,this is a Victorian planting at its mostromantic encircling a small lake. A profusionof unusual flowering shrubs and trees cometo their peak of perfection in late October. TheJardin Potager is designed in the traditionalmanner, it is enclosed by tall hedges of brightred apples and laid out as a geometric gridaround a central fountain. Seasonal plantingsof fruit, flowers, vegetables and herbs makethis an excellent example of this form ofgardening. Kennerton Green is also noted forits decorative trained fruit trees, most incordon styles featuring different trees andvines, trained and clipped to form arches andpatterns. A magnificent collection of birds,including white peacocks, fantail pigeons andAustralian parrots is displayed in a series ofornamental birdcages.

Kennerton Green is located in Bong BongRoad, Mittagong, New South Wales.

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Music Competition in Trieste for piano andstrings. Caroline Almonte and Miki Tsunodaperform together as Duo Sol.

In New York, Caroline Almonte continued herpost-graduate studies at the Juilliard School withOxana Yablonskaya (piano performance) andSamuel Sanders (chamber music). She alsoparticipated in masterclasses with YvonneLoriod, György Sebök (Banff Festival), andMichele Campanella (Accademia di Chigiana).

During her years in New York, she performedregularly as soloist and chamber musician inrecitals at the Lincoln Centre, the 92nd St Y,Metropolitan Museum, was the pianist in theArista Trio, staff accompanist at the JuilliardSchool and often premiered new works at NewYork University. With soprano Cheryl Marshall,she toured as visiting artist in residence at nineuniversities across the United States andappeared at the New Music Festival in theNetherlands, performing an ‘All AmericanProgram’ of 20th-century music.

Caroline Almonte has performed as soloist withsymphony orchestras around Australia includingconcerti from Mozart and Beethoven through Liszt,Rachmaninov, Prokofiev and Gershwin, workingwith conductors Hiroyuki Iwaki, Markus Stenz,David Porcelijn, Nicholas Braithwaite, VladimirKamirski and Brian Stacey. She has worked withthe Harlem Dance Company and Orchestra Victoriato perform Ginastera’s piano concerto at theopening of the 1999 Melbourne Festival.

As a chamber musician, Caroline Almonte hascollaborated with many artists including YvonneKenny, Sue-Ellen Paulsen, Li-Wei, AlexanderIvashkin, Fine Arts Quartet, Prudence Davis andElise Milman.

She regularly gives both piano and chambermusic masterclasses in Melbourne, regionalVictoria, New South Wales and the NorthernTerritory. She has been an adjudicator at severalpiano competitions including Dandenong Festivaland David Paul Landa Scholarship, and pianotutor at the National Music Camp in Perth.Caroline Almonte currently teaches at theUniversity of Melbourne.

Executive Producers Robert Patterson, Lyle ChanEditorial and Production Manager Hilary ShrubbRecording Producer Stephen SnellemanAssociate Producer Caroline AlmonteRecording Engineer Jim AtkinsEditor Melissa MayBooklet Design Imagecorp Pty LtdPhotography Paul Henderson-Kelly. Photographs taken atKennerton Green, Mittagong, New South Wales, Australia

Recorded 6-11 April 2003 in the Iwaki Auditorium of theAustralian Broadcasting Corporation's Southbank Centre,Melbourne.

ABC Classics would like to thank Marylyn Abbott,Christine Reid, Caroline Almonte, Linnhe Robertson

� 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.� 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.Made in Australia. All rights of the owner of copyright reserved.Any copying, renting, lending, diffusion, public performance orbroadcast of this record without the authority of the copyrightowner is prohibited.

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