Nightingale
for soprano, descant recorder, oboe, violin, cello and harpsichord
Composition Date: 2009
Duration: 4'
Text: Hafez trans. Jila Peacock
Information:
This version of Nightingale was commissioned by Lake District Summer Music.
Programme Note:
NIGHTINGALE
version for soprano, descant recorder, oboe, violin, cello and harpsichord (2009)
from ‘Four Songs from Hafez’ for tenor and piano 2007
texts: Divan-e-Hafez, translated by Jila Peacock
The four songs, of which Nightingale is the first, are settings of the 14th century Persian Sufi poet, each using a bird or animal to describe separation from, and longing for, the Beloved.
I chose these texts after seeing Jila Peacock’s extraordinary book, Ten Poems from Hafez, in which the whole Persian text of each poem has been designed in the shape of the animal mentioned by Hafez in the text, and set alongside a new English translation by the artist.
Several more pieces arose from these texts, including an oratorio, The Lion and the Deer, and a concertante work for viola, harp and string quartet with amateur string orchestra, entitled Rhapsody on Themes from Hafez.
In this new version, Nightingale is set against an ostinato accompaniment on the harpsichord, with the recorder creating the bird’s song. The other instruments interject with lyrical phrases and echoes of the accompaniment.
The four songs were originally commissioned by Leeds Lieder+ with funds partly provided by the RVW Trust, and first performed by Mark Padmore and Roger Vignoles at Leeds College of Music, on 12th October 2007.
This version of Nightingale was commissioned by Lake District Summer Music.
Nightingale
Roaming the dawn garden
I heard the call of a nightingale
Forlorn like me he loved the rose
And in that cry surged all his warbling grief
I drifted in that garden’s timeless moment
Balancing the plight of rose and bird
For endless roses flower each day
Yet no man plucks a single bloom
Without the risk of thorn
O Hafez, seek no gain from the orbit of this wheel
It has a thousand failings and no concern for you
Divan-e-Hafez, translated by Jila Peacock
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