WEIR: The Voice of Desire: 1. Voice of Desire

COMPOSER: Judith Weir
Alice Coote, mezzo-soprano
Graham Johnson, piano
BBC Proms Chamber Music recital, Monday, July 16, 2007.

(Text: "Nightingales," a poem by Robert Bridges)

Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come,
And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams wherefrom
Ye learn your song:
Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,
Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air
Bloom the year long!

Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:
Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams,
A throe of the heart,
Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound,
No dying cadence, nor long sigh can sound,
For all our art.

Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men
We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then,
As night is withdrawn
From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May,
Dream, while the innumerable choir of day
Welcome the dawn.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• alice
• coote
• judith
• weir
• graham
• johnson
• voice
• of
• desire
• song
• cycle
• 2003
• bbc
• proms
• 2007
• recital
• piano
• mezzosoprano

[Secrettspb]

Beautiful