Chautauqua Chamber Music
Monday, July 14 • 4:00 p.m.
Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall

The Gesualdo Six: Wishing Tree

Guy James countertenor

Alasdair Austin countertenor

Joseph Wicks tenor

Josh Cooter tenor

Simon Grant baritone

Owain Park director and bass

Program:

William Byrd (1540-1623): This sweet and merry month of May(1590)[3']

David Bednall(b.1979)-Put out into the deep(2008)[5']

arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams(1872-1958): Bushes and Briars (1908)[3']

Alison Willis(b.1971)-The Wind's Warning(2019)[2']

Joby Talbot(b.1971)- The Wishing Tree(2002)[3']

Alec Roth (b.1948)- The Flower(2011)[3']

Owain Park(b.1993)- When love speaks(2015)[2']

arr. James Whitbourn(1963-2024)- The Lark in the clear air[1']

Jacques Arcadelt(1507-1568)- Il bianco e dolce cigno(1538)[2']

Orlando Gibbons(1583-1625)- The Silver Swan(1612)[1']

Charles Villiers Stanford(1852-1924)- The Blue Bird(1910)[4']

Christen Holmes(2000)- Summer Shower(2019)[3']

Josquin des Prez(1450-1521)- El Grillo(1498)[2']

arr. Simon Carrington(b.1942)- O my love is like a red, red rose(1759)[4']

John Wilbye(1574-1638)- Draw on, sweet night (1609)[4']

Chautauqua Chamber Music is made possible in part by The Kay Hardesty Logan Fund.

THIS SWEET AND MERRY MONTH OF MAY

Music by William Byrd

This sweet and merry month of May,

While nature wantons in her prime,

And birds do sing, and beasts do play

For pleasure of the joyful time,

I choose the first for holiday,

And greet Eliza with a rhyme:

O beauteous Queen of second Troy,

Take well in worth a simple toy.

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PUT OUT INTO THE DEEP

Music by David Bednall

While the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. And he saw two boats by the lake; but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

And when he had ceased speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.”

And when they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish; and as their nets were breaking, the beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus ’knees, saying; “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.

And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men.” And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him

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BUSHES AND BRIARS

Traditional, arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams

Through bushes and through briars I lately took my way;

All for to hear the small birds sing and the lambs to skip and play.

I overheard my own true love, her voice it was so clear;

“Long time I have been waiting for the coming of my dear.

Sometimes I am uneasy and troubled in my mind,

Sometimes I think I’ll go to my love and tell to him my mind.

And if I should go to my love, my love he will say nay,

If I show to him my boldness, he’ll ne’er love me again.”

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THE WIND’S WARNING

Music by Alison Willis

Words by Ivor Gurney

All night the fierce wind blew –

All night I knew

Time, like a dark wind, blowing

All days, all lives, all memories

Down empty endless skies –

A blind wind, strowing

Bright leaves of life's torn tree

through blank eternity:

Dreadfully swift, Time blew.

All night I knew

the outrush of its going.

At dawn a thin rain wept.

Worn out, I slept

And woke to a fair morning.

My days were amply long, and I

content

In their accomplishment –

Lost the wind's warning.

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THE WISHING TREE

Music by Joby Talbot (b.1971)

Words by Kathleen Jamie

I stand neither in the wilderness nor fairyland

but in the fold of a green hill

the tilt from one parish into another.

To look at me through a smirr of rain

is to taste the iron in your own blood

because I hoard the common currency

of longing: each wish each secret assignation.

My limbs lift, scabbed with greenish coins

I draw into my slow wood fleur-de-lys, the enthroned Brittania.

Behind me, the land reaches toward the Atlantic

And though I’m poisoned choking on the small change

of human hope, daily beaten into me

look: I am still alive— in fact, in bud.

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THE FLOWER

Music by Alec Roth

Text by George Herbert

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean

Are Thy returns! ev’n as the flowers in spring;

To which, besides their own demean,

The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring

Grief melts away

Like snow in May,

As if there were no such cold thing.

Who would have thought my shrivell’d heart

Could have recover’d greenness? It was gone

Quite underground, as flowers depart

To see their mother-root, when thеy have blown

Where thеy together

All the hard weather

Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

And now in age I bud again,

After so many deaths I live and write;

I once more smell the dew and rain,

And relish versing: O my only light,

It cannot be

That I am he

On whom thy tempests fell all night

These are thy wonders, Lord of love,

To make us see we are but flowers that glide:

Which when we once can find and prove,

Thou hast a garden for us, where to bide.

Who would be more,

Swelling through store,

Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

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WHEN LOVE SPEAKS

Music by Owain Park

Love is not love when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

Oh no, it is an ever fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken.

Love comforteth like sunshine after rain

Love’s gentle spring doth ever fresh remain

And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods

Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.

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THE LARK IN THE CLEAR AIR

Traditional, arranged by James Whitbourn

Dear thoughts are in my mind

And my soul soars enchanted,

As I hear the sweet lark sing

In the clear air of the day.

For a tender beaming smile

To my hope has been granted,

And tomorrow she shall hear

All my fond heart would say.

I shall tell her all my love,

All my soul's adoration,

And I think she will hear

And will not say me nay.

It is this that gives my soul

All its joyous elation,

As I hear the sweet lark sing

In the clear air of the day.

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IL BIANCO E DOLCE CIGNO

Music by Jacques Arcadelt

Il bianco e dolce cigno cantando more, ed io piangendo giung ’al fin del viver mio. Stran ’e diversa sorte, ch'ei more sconsolato ed io moro beato. Morte che nel morire m’empie di gioia tutto e di desire. Se nel morir, altro dolor non sento, di mille mort ’il di sarei contento.

The white and sweet swan dies singing, and I, weeping, reach the end of my life.

Strange and different fate, that he dies disconsolate and I die a blessed death, which in dying fills me full of joy and desire. If in dying, were I to feel no other pain, I would be content to die a thousand deaths a day.

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THE SILVER SWAN

Music by Orlando Gibbons

The silver swan, who living had no note,

When death approached, unlocked her silent throat;

Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,

Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more:

“Farewell, all joys; Oh death, come close mine eyes;

More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.”

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THE BLUE BIRD

Music by Charles Villiers Stanford

Text by Mary E. Coleridge

The lake lay blue below the hill.

O’er it, as I looked, there flew

Across the waters, cold and still,

A bird whose wings were palest blue.

The sky above was blue at last,

The sky beneath me blue in blue.

A moment, ere the bird had passed,

It caught his image as he flew.

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SUMMER SHOWER

Music by Christen Holmes

Text from Emily Dickinson “Summer Shower’

A drop fell on the apple tree,

Another on the roof;

A half a dozen kissed the eaves,

And made the gables laugh.

A few went out to help the brook,

That went to help the sea.

Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,

What necklaces could they be!

The dust replaced in hoisted roads,

Birds sung, The sunshine threw its hat away,

The breezes brought dejected lutes,

And bathed them in the glee;

The East put out a single flag,

And signed the fete away.

A drop fell on the apple tree.

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EL GRILLO

Music by Josquin des Prez

El grillo è buon cantore

Che tiene longo verso.

Dalle beve grillo canta.

Ma non fa come gli altri uccelli

Come li han cantato un poco,

Van de fatto in altro loco

Sempre el grillo sta pur saldo,

Quando la maggior el caldo

Alhor canta sol per amore.

The cricket is a good singer He can sing very long

He sings all the time.

But he isn’t like the other birds.

If they’ve sung a little bit

They go somewhere else

The cricket remains where he is

When the heat is very fierce

Then he sings only for love.

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OH MY LOVE IS LIKE A RED, RED ROSE

Traditional, arranged by Simon Carrington

Words by Robert Burns

O my Love is like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June;

O my Love is like the melody

That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in love am I;

And I will love thee still, my dear,

Till a ’the seas gang dry.

Till a ’the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi ’the sun;

I will love thee still, my dear,

While the sands o ’life shall run.

And fare thee well, my only love!

And fare thee well awhile!

And I will come again, my love,

Though it were ten thousand mile.

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DRAW ON, SWEET NIGHT

Music by John Wilbye

Draw on, sweet Night, best friend unto those cares

That do arise from painful melancholy;

My life so ill through want of comfort fares,

That unto thee I consecrate it wholly.

Sweet Night, draw on; my griefs, when they be told

To shades and darkness, find some ease from paining;

And while thou all in silence dost enfold,

I then shall have best time for my complaining.