Anthony Payne

composer

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Break, Break, Break

1996
7'
SATB
1st perf:

Trinity College Choir
Richard Marlow, conductor
Spitalfields Festival, 26 June 1996

Private recording
Self-published

Programme note:

The solemnity of Tennyson's themes, the bold simplicity of his imagery and the stately tread of his rhythms, together with the marvellous word-music which somehow never discourages the composer from adding his own music, have always greatly attracted me. I chose Tennyson for my first extended setting of English words, a tribute to my wife Jane Manning on our tenth wedding anniversary, and now, twenty years later, I could imagine no finer poet to furnish words for this 60th birthday commission and, coincidentally, 30th wedding anniversary present.

Great tolling phrases like 'Break, break, break,' suggest musical ideas which can be used to punctuate and under-pin textures throughout the piece, while the poem's emotional ternary form strides across the four-verse structure to create fascinating resonances.

'Break, break, break' has been jointly commissioned by the Spitalfields and Cheltenham Festivals.

 

 

Break, break, break,

On thy cold grey stones, 0 Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.

 

O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!

O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

 

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand.

And the sound of a voice that is still!

 

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy creags , O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

 

 

Anthony Payne

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