The three poems that I selected for this song cycle portray both John
Hewitt’s and my love of the Glens of Antrim, with its dramatic landscape,
endless sea and rich variety of texture and colour. His references to
nature in the two outer brief songs Mid-April and
April Awake are clearly inspired by the senses: you can
practically smell the ‘sunlight on the whin’ and the ‘leafing hedge and
willow’, and admire the colours of ‘the blossoms white of blackthorn’, ‘the
gold galore’ and the ‘purple-shadowed furrow’. The central song
The Hill Farm brought back fond memories as a child saying the
family evening rosary. I can imagine the poems evening caller being
intrigued by the mother’s ‘rise and fall of rhythmic word’, while the voices of
the family respond ‘with, now and then, a smothered yawn!’
April Awake was commissioned by the Belfast Music Society for
performance by the Canadian soprano Catherine Robbin and pianist Angela Hewitt
at the Great Hall at Queen’s University, Belfast in April 2004. It was
subsequently performed by Aylish Kerrigan and Dearbhla Collins in Dublin and
China in 2009. The piece is dedicated to Elizabeth Bicker, Chair of the
Belfast Music Society. |
