A modern lied on John Keats' perennial classic 'To Autumn'. Huge thanks to Sarah Richmond and Ruth Montgomery for performing this.
Contemporary Modern Classical Composer.
I hope you enjoy the music here.
Much of it is older, but I'm adding new pieces.
Story behind the song
A contemporary lied on John Keats' classic ode "To Autumn". This song features polychordal harmony. Unfortunately, there are rather a few mistakes in the vocal line, as recording time was extremely scarce and rehearsal was minimal.
Many thanks to Sarah Richmond and Ruth Montgomery for performing the piece.
Lyrics
To Autumn - John Keats
Season of mists and mellow fruitlessness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of the poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath, and all its twinéd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they
Think not of them, --thou hast thy music too,
While barréd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
