# English songs?



## kikko (Jun 19, 2014)

Hi everyone!

I'd really like to write some lieders and I'm searching for some appropriate english poem (or songs) on the style of Schebert's lieder.

Can you help me showing me some examples?

Thanks!


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

I'd pick anything by English Romantic poets, for eg.:

Wordsworth & Coleridge: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9622/9622-h/9622-h.htm
Byron: http://www.poetry-archive.com/b/byron_george_gordon.html
Keats: http://www.poemhunter.com/john-keats/
Shelley: http://www.poemhunter.com/percy-bysshe-shelley/

Or if you want it a bit more 'old-school', you could go for some Shakespeare sonnets.
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/18.html
http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/

If you want some more eerie poetry, try Edgar Allan Poe.

http://www.heise.de/ix/raven/Literature/Lore/TheRaven.html


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The Shooting of Dan McGrew?

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174349


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## kikko (Jun 19, 2014)

Thanks for the replies!

I'll read your posts but can you suggest me a short song that's sad or that talks about love?

I'm searching especially for something that occupies 2-3 minutes of music.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

There are too many poems to suggest, but here are three of my favourites. One is sad, but about memories and death:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears,_Idle_Tears - by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

and one is about love. 'Who is it that this dark night...' by Sir Philip Sidney.

http://www.englishverse.com/poems/voices_at_the_window

A longer one would be 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' by John Keats:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Belle_Dame_sans_Merci

But choruses and repetitions could bring you the required length.

Good luck with your mission!


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

Shelley: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-arise-from-dreams-of-thee/

Byron: http://www.poetry-archive.com/b/and_thou_art_dead_as_young_and_fair.html


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

The English baritone Simon Keenlyside has recorded some beautiful English songs.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

You may want to check out George Butterworth's 'A Shropshire Lad' cycle (after A.E. Houseman) which is central to his slender output - the song below is especially poignant seeing he was a casualty of WWI:

IS MY TEAM PLOUGHING?

"Is my team ploughing
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?"

Ay, the horses trample,
The harness jingles now;
No change though you lie under
The land you used to plough.

"Is football playing
Along the river-shore,
With lads to chase the leather,
Now I stand up no more?"

Ay, the ball is flying,
The lads play heart and soul;
The goal stands up, the keeper
Stands up to keep the goal.

"Is my girl happy,
That I thought hard to leave,
And has she tired of weeping
As she lies down at eve?"

Ay, she lies down lightly,
She lies not down to weep:
Your girl is well contented.
Be still, my lad, and sleep.

"Is my friend hearty,
Now I am thin and pine,
And has he found to sleep in
A better bed than mine?"

Yes, lad, I lie easy,
I lie as lads would choose;
I cheer a dead man's sweetheart,
Never ask me whose.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

elgars ghost said:


> You may want to check out George Butterworth's 'A Shropshire Lad' cycle (after A.E. Houseman) which is central to his slender output - the song below is especially poignant seeing he was a casualty of WWI:
> 
> IS MY TEAM PLOUGHING?
> 
> ...


Beautiful! This is on Simon's Songs of War.

Track Listing

Sea Fever (Ireland)
Into My Heart An Air That Kills (Somervell)
Youth And Love (Vaughan Williams)
The Infinite Shining Heavens (Vaughan Williams)
Loveliest Of Trees
When I Was One - And
Look Not In My Eyes
Think No More, Lad
The Lads In Their Hundreds
Is My Team Ploughing?
There Pass The Careless People (Somervell)
The Night (Warlock)
White In The Moon (Somervell)
Bredon Hill (Butterworth)
O Fair Enough Are Sky And Plain (Butterworth)
When The Lad For Longing Sighs (Butterworth)
On The Idle Hill Of Summer (Butterworth)
With Rue My Heart Is Laden (Butterworth)
The Vagabond (Ireland)
The Three Ravens (Trad. Arr Ireland)
Fear No More The Heat O' The Sun (Finzi)
Thy Hand In Mine (Bridge)
The Vagabond (Vaughan Williams)
An Incident (Rorem)
When Death To Either Shall Come (Gurney)
In Flanders (Gurney)
The Street Sounds To The Soldiers' Tread (Somervell)
Beat! Beat! Drums! (Weill)
Dirge For Two Veterans (Weill)


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Thanks for the track breakdown - I assumed the song would be featured but wasn't sure whose version.


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## kikko (Jun 19, 2014)

Yo guys, I'll start writing my first lieder using this poem. Opinions?

"What is our life?" by Sir Walter Raleigh.

What is our life? A play of passion, 
Our mirth the music of division, 
Our mother's wombs the tiring-houses be, 
Where we are dressed for this short comedy. 
Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is, 
That sits and marks still who doth act amiss. 
Our graves that hide us from the setting sun 
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done. 
Thus march we, playing, to our latest rest, 
Only we die in earnest, that's no jest.


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## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

Have you tried your hand at writing your own poem?


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## kikko (Jun 19, 2014)

Stargazer said:


> Have you tried your hand at writing your own poem?


Never tried.....


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## Guest (Aug 1, 2014)

Start listening to Benjamin Britten.


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## Bas (Jul 24, 2012)

Maybe the Sea Pictures cycle of Elgar inspires you...
(Sabbath Morning at Sea, really beautiful to both the reader as well as the listener)


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## Joris (Jan 13, 2013)

I'm also very eager to find great settings of English poems, perhaps even more early than the ones mentioned e.g. Dowland 

Sorry to intrude in the thread; but I was coming to this subforum to post a thread of my own, but that seems a bit redundant now. 

Thanks


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

Haydn's songs:

http://www.amazon.de/Song-Arleen-Au...1407753157&sr=8-4&keywords=haydn+lieder+auger


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## Marcel (Aug 14, 2014)

"She loves and she confesses too", by John Potter or Valer Barna-Sabadus.


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## AST (Oct 8, 2014)

Recently performed Amy Beach's Op. 44 set, inspired by Robert Browning: http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/b/browning/


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## Musicforawhile (Oct 10, 2014)

"Down by the Sally Gardens" (poem by Irish poet Yeats), sung by Andreas Scholl here:


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