EPISODE 45: TO SEE A WORLD IN A GRAIN OF SAND, AND A SONG IN A BLAKE POEM

EPISODE 45: TO SEE A WORLD IN A GRAIN OF SAND, AND A SONG IN A BLAKE POEM

Visionary, mystic, and a pretty fair magician with words, William Blake (b 1757, a 19th-century writer and artist who is regarded as a seminal figure of the Romantic Age), has been lionized over the centuries, including Allen Ginsberg and some of the Beat writers. 

His poetry has been set to music by a range of composers and musicians, including classical composers (Ralph Vaughan Williams, Parry/Elgar), folk artists (Julia Bloom, Paul Howard, Nicki Wells).

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS DOES BLAKE

For an accessible set of Blake poems set to classical music, one need look no further than Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Blake Songs, composed by the ultimate British pastoral composer and ably delivered by Ian Partridge on a ten-track album released in 1989 (playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kQTENgosQ2aNV–o1SNGwgpCe8pYjdreQ). Partridge (b 1938) is a retired English lyric tenor, whose repertoire ranged from Monteverdi, Bach and Handel, and Elizabethanlute songs, up to the more modernist Schoenberg, Weill and Benjamin Britten. Our favorite from these tracks, all of which feature songs arranged for voice and oboe, are The Piper (3) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOc0Gb7oCsw); Ah Sunflower (7) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03WwS9dl0wk) and Divine Image (9) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoJQcqgjh7E).

POISON TREE, BETH ORTON

First published in his Songs of Experience in 1794. In deceptively simple language with an almost nursery-rhyme quality, the speaker of the poem details two different approaches to anger. In the first, openly talking about anger is presented as a way of moving past it. The poem is generally interpreted as an allegory for the danger of bottling up emotions, and how doing so leads to a cycle of negativity and even violence.

Elizabeth Caroline Orton (born 14 December 1970) is an English musician, known for her  folktronica sound, which mixes elements of Celtic folk with jazz, blues and electronica. She was initially recognised for her collaborations with William Orbit, Andrew Weatherall and Bert Jansch.

I was angry with my friend; 

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe: 

I told it not, my wrath did grow. 

And I waterd it in fears,

Night & morning with my tears: 

And I sunned it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles. 

And it grew both day and night. 

Till it bore an apple bright. 

And my foe beheld it shine,

And he knew that it was mine. 

And into my garden stole, 

When the night had veild the pole; 

In the morning glad I see; 

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

ECHOING GREEN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E7TWJIyrJ8

Live performance of Blake’s Echoing Green by Paul Howard, a 30plus year veteran of the London folk music scene, accompanied by guitarist Jo Clack, and one of the tracks from his greatest hits album. 

Through its images of “green” growth and a day fading into night, the poem explores the way that the rhythms of human life and death “echo” over and over again, and the comfort that people can take in these echoes.

The sun does arise,

And make happy the skies.

The merry bells ring

To welcome the Spring.

The sky-lark and thrush,

The birds of the bush,

Sing louder around,

To the bells’ cheerful sound. 

While our sports shall be seen

On the Ecchoing Green.

. 

LET THE SLAVE

A powerful polemic, churned out with the power and gutter-grace of composer and vocalist Mike Westbrook (also covered by Van Morrison). Westbrook, an English jazz pianist, composer, and writer of orchestrated jazz. This song is from the 1980 album Glad Day, many of the songs of which derive from “TYGER”, Adrian Mitchell’s musical about William Blake, which was staged by the National Theatre Company in 1971 with specially commissioned music by Westbrook.By the mid 70’s the Blake songs had become an integral part of of the repertoire of the Mike Westbrook Brass Band, on tour throughout Britain and Europe as well as further afield. 

Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field
Let him look up into the heavens and laugh in the bright air
Let the in-chained soul, shut up in darkness and in sighing
Whose face has never seen a smile in 30 weary years

Rose and look out, his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open
And let his wife and children return from the oppressor’s scourge
They look behind at every step and believe, and believe it is a dream
Singing, the sun has left his blackness and has found a fresher morning

And the fair moon rejoices in the clear and cloudless night
For the empire is no more and now the lion and wolf shall cease
For everything that lives is holy
For everything that lives is holy

THE TYGER

A more straightforward folk/pop rendering of Blakes famous Tyger Tyger, by Julia Bloom, who bills herself as “Half of folk/pop duo Cabin of Love, and one-quarter of Americana band The Foragers.” 

Often said to be the most widely anthologized poem in the English language. It consists entirely of questions about the nature of God and creation, particularly whether the same God that created vulnerable beings like the lamb could also have made the fearsome tiger. The tiger becomes a symbol for one of religion’s most difficult questions: why does God allow evil to exist? At the same time, however, the poem is an expression of marvel and wonder at the tiger and its fearsome power, and by extension the power of both nature and God.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

JERUSALEM, BLAKE’S ENGLISH ‘ANTHEM’

“And did those feet in ancient time” is a poem by Blake from the preface to his epic Milton: A Poem in Two Books, one of a collection of writings known as the Prophetic Books. The date of 1804 on the title page is probably when the plates were begun, but the poem was printed c. 1808.Today it is best known as the hymn “Jerusalem“, with music written by Sir Hubert Parry and orchestrated by Edward Elgar

This version, by Nicki Wells (a multidisciplinary artist born in London, raised in Italy and known for her ability create amalgamations of Celtic Folk, European choral music and British/Asian music) is most purely musical and pretty much eschews the stilted pageantry of most renderings of the anthem. 

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England’s mountains green:

And was the holy Lamb of God,

On Englands pleasant pastures seen!