Sir Edward Elgar - Sea Pictures, Song Cycle for Contralto & Orchestra (or piano), Op. 37 is a song cycle consisting of five songs:
1. Sea Slumber-Song, Poem by by Roden Noel
2. In Haven (Capri), Poem by Caroline Alice Elgar, the composer's wife
3. A Sabbath Morning at Sea, Poem by by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
4. Where Corals Lie, Poem by Richard Garnett
5. The Swimmer, Poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
The composer's Sea Pictures (1897-99) for contralto and large orchestra are based on some rather pedestrian verses which, nonetheless, Elgar manages to touch with magic. The songs range from the calm but brooding "Sea Slumber-Song" (Noel) to the fiercely exultant "A Sabbath Morning at Sea" (Browning), with the jewel-like "Where Corals Lie" (Garnett) nestled among all the grandeur. The music has a compelling sweep and sincerity that compares favorably with the sentimental miniatures perhaps more usually associated with the vocal music of Victorian England. It was set for contralto and orchestra, though a distinct version for piano was often performed by Elgar. Much of the vocal line of the first song, "Sea Slumber Song," is heard again in other parts of the cycle; most notably, the second stanza is heard again almost in its entirety as part of the finale.
Elgar composed the piece on his 1844 Broadwood Square piano while residing at Birchwood Lodge, Great Storridge in Herefordshire. The songs were originally written in high keys for a soprano voice, but transposed to lower keys for the orchestral version, largely at the request of the contralto Clara Butt.
The premiere was on 5 October 1899 at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival with Elgar himself conducting and Clara Butt singing, dressed as a mermaid. On 7 October, Clara Butt gave the first London performance at St. James's Hall, with Elgar at the piano. Nearly two weeks later, on 20 October, Butt performed it for Queen Victoria at Balmoral.
1. SEA SLUMBER SONG
Sea-birds are asleep,
The world forgets to weep,
Sea murmurs her soft slumber-song
On the shadowy sand
Of this elfin land;
"I, the Mother mild,
Hush thee, O my child,
Forget the voices wild!
Hush thee
Isles in elfin light
Dream, the rocks and caves,
Lull’d by whispering waves,
Veil their marbles
Foam glimmers faintly white
Upon the shelly sand
Of this elfin land;
Sea-sound, like violins,
To slumber woos and wins,
I murmur my soft slumber-song,
Leave woes, and wails, and sins,
Ocean’s shadowy might
Breathes good-night,
Good-night…
2. IN HAVEN (CAPRI)
Closely let me hold thy hand,
Storms are sweeping sea and land;
Love alone will stand.
Closely cling, for waves beat fast,
Foam-flakes cloud the hurrying blast;
Love alone will last.
Kiss my lips, and softly say:
"Joy, sea-swept, may fade to-day;
Love alone will stay.
3. SABBATH NORNING AT SEA
The ship went on with solemn face;
To meet the darkness on the deep,
The solemn ship went onward.
I bowed down weary in the place;
For parting tears and present sleep
Had weighed mine eyelids downward.
The new sight, the new wondrous sight!
The waters around me, turbulent,
The skies, impassive o'er me,
Calm in a moonless, sunless light,
As glorified by even the intent
Of holding the day glory!
Love me, sweet friends, this Sabbath day.
The sea sings round me while ye roll
Afar the hymn, unaltered,
And kneel, where once I knelt to pray,
And bless me deeper in your soul
Because your voice has faltered.
And though this sabbath comes to me
Without the stolèd minister,
And chanting congregation,
God's Spirit shall give comfort. He
Who brooded soft on waters drear,
Creator on creation.
He shall assist me to look higher,
Where keep the saints, with harp and song,
An endless sabbath morning,
And, on that sea commixed with fire,
Oft drop their eyelids raised too long
To the full Godhead's burning.
4. WHERE CORALS LIE
The deeps have music soft and low
When winds awake the airy spry,
It lures me, lures me on to go
And see the land where corals lie.
By mount and mead, by lawn and rill,
When night is deep, and moon is high,
That music seeks and finds me still,
And tells me where the corals lie.
Yes, press my eyelids close, 'tis well,
But far the rapid fancies fly
To rolling worlds of wave and shell,
And all the land where corals lie.
Thy lips are like a sunset glow,
Thy smile is like a morning sky,
Yet leave me, leave me, let me go
And see the land where corals lie.
5. THE SWIMMER
With short, sharp, violent lights made vivid,
To southward far as the sight can roam;
Only the swirl of the surges livid,
The seas that climb and the surfs that comb.
Only the crag and the cliff to nor'ward,
The rocks receding, and reefs flung forward,
Waifs wrecked seaward and wasted shoreward
On shallows sheeted with flaming foam.
A grim, grey coast and a seaboard ghastly,
And shores trod seldom by feet of men -
Where the battered hull and the broken mast lie,
They have lain embedded these long years ten.
Love! when we wander'd here together,
Hand in hand [...]
19 сен 2024
