Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958):
SWEET DAY
Ralph Vaughan Williams was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.
"Sweet day" was composed in 1896 (published 1913). It is no. 1 of "Three Elizabethan Partsongs" (the others being "O mistress mine" and "The willow song"). Vaughan Williams sets stanzas 1, 3 and 4 of George Herbert's poem.
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridall of the earth and skie:
The dew shall weep thy fall to night;
For thou must die.
Sweet spring, full of sweet dayes and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My musick shows ye have your closes,
For thou must die.
Onely a sweet and vertuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
(George Herbert, 1633)
Laudibus (2008)
Conducted by Mike Brewer
20 окт 2024
