Dancing Tree: In my garden - John Rutter, The Cambridge Singers, Grace Davidson, Catrin Finch

Описание: 'Dancing Tree: In my garden'
From the album ‘In the Poet's Garden’

Composer John Rutter
Conductor John Rutter
Choir The Cambridge Singers
Soprano Grace Davidson
Harp Catrin Finch

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In the Poet's Garden
John writes:
“Any composer interested in vocal and choral music is both inspired and nourished by poetry. Second only to music, words are my great love, and from my earliest years I have enjoyed seeking out poetry that seems to invite musical setting. This album brings together some of my recent choral music where the words provided the first inspiration and the music followed."

Dancing Tree
Dancing Tree (2024) came about as a result of a rather different invitation, this one from the St. Charles Singers, a chamber choir based in Illinois. I have enjoyed guest-conducting this excellent choir on a number of occasions and Jeff Hunt, their founder-director, is a good friend. He shares my love of poetry, and was happy to accept my suggestion of a cycle of Charles Causley settings, with harp accompaniment. Charles Causley (1917–2003) was a Cornish poet and schoolteacher who had a lifelong love of the folklore and legends of Cornwall, and also possessed the rare gift of writing for children but not writing down to them. His poetry – generally expressed in deceptively simple words, always with a touch of the unexpected – is highly musical, perhaps reflecting Causley’s experience playing for a time in a local dance band. Sometimes whimsical, sometimes mystical, sometimes speaking with the voice of folk poetry or even nursery rhyme, Causley is a gift to any composer.

In my garden

In my garden
Grows a tree
Dances day
And night for me,
Four in a bar
Or sometimes three
To music secret
As can be.

Nightly to
Its hidden tune
I watch it move
Against the moon,
Dancing to
A silent sound,
One foot planted
In the ground.

Dancing tree,
When may I hear
Day or night
Your music clear?
What the note
And what the song
That you sing
The seasons long?

It is written
Said the tree,
On the pages
Of the sea;
It is there
At every hand
On the pages
Of the land;

Whether waking
Or in dream:
Voice of meadow-grass
And stream,
And out of
The ringing air
Voice of sun
And moon and star.

It is there
For all to know
As tides shall turn
And wildflowers grow;
There for you
And there for me,
Said the glancing
Dancing tree.
(Charles Causley)
Poems reprinted by kind permission of David Higham Associates Ltd

John Rutter, English composer and conductor, is associated with choral music throughout the world. His recordings with the Cambridge Singers (the professional chamber choir he set up in 1983) have reached a wide global audience, many of them featuring his own music in definitive versions. Among John’s best-known choral works are Gloria, Requiem, Magnificat, Mass of the Children, and Visions, together with many church anthems, choral songs and Christmas carols.

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