Classical Music | Contralto

Recorded on 04/08/2008, uploaded on 01/25/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

The song cycle Sea Pictures for contralto and orchestra dates from July 1899.  Clara Butt sang it for the first time in public at a Norwich Festival concert on October 5, 1899, with Elgar conducting.  The performance was repeated two days later in London, at the old St. James's Hall, and later that month Clara Butt sang the songs for Queen Victoria as part of a command performance at Balmoral Castle.

Elgar was by no means known as a distinguished song-writer.  Sea Pictures represents his best endeavor in this field: it shows the same sensitivity to words and awareness of atmosphere as does the composer's best vocal writing in his oratorios.

The deep calm of the nocturnal first song is followed by the delicacy of 'In Haven' to a text by the composer's wife, which had been set two years earlier as a song with piano.  The lovers watch a storm at sea, fully reassured by the enduring strength of their love.  By contrast, in 'Sabbath Morning at Sea' Elizabeth Barrett Browning's words are set with a characteristic (and appropriate) Elgarian eloquence and grandeur.  The musical opening of the first song is quoted at the words "And on that sea commixed with fire."

After 'Where Corals Lie', long the most popular of the cycle and another setting of direct and delicate simplicity, the final song describes a swimmer struggling against a rough sea.  A peaceful haven is reached in the middle of the song, where a skilful recollection of earlier themes is effected.  But the storm has the final word in a song with a darker side.

1. Sea Slumber Song

by Roden Berkeley Wriothesley Noel (1834-1894)

 Sea-birds are asleep,

 The world forgets to weep,

 Sea murmurs her soft slumber-song

 On the shadowy sand

 Of this elfin land;

 I, the Mother mild,

 Hush thee, oh my child,

 Forget the voices wild!

 Hush thee, oh my child,

 Hush thee.

 Isles in elfin light

 Dream, the rocks and caves,

 Lulled by whispering waves,

 Veil their marbles

   Veil their marbles bright.

 Foam glimmers faintly

   faintly white

 Upon the shelly sand

 Of this elfin land;

 Sea-sound, like violins,

 To slumber woos and wins,

 I murmur my soft slumber-song,

               my slumber song

 Leave woes, and wails, and sins.

 Ocean's shadowy might

 Breathes good night,

 Good night...

 Leave woes, and wails, and sins.

 Good night...Good night...

 Good night...

 Good night...

 Good night...  Good night.

2. In Haven (Capri)

by Caroline Alice Elgar (1848-1920)

 Closely let me hold thy hand,

    Storms are sweeping sea and land;

 Love alone will stand.

 Closely cling, for waves beat fast,

    Foam-flakes cloud the hurrying blast;

 Love alone will last.

 Kiss my lips, and softly say:

    Joy, sea-swept, may fade to-day;

 Love alone will stay.

3. Sabbath Morning at Sea

by Elizabeth Barret Browning, (1806-1861)

 The ship went on with solemn face;

 To meet the darkness on the deep,

 The solemn ship went onward.

 I bowed down weary in the place;

 for parting tears and present sleep

 Had weighed mine eyelids downward.

 The new sight, the new wondrous sight!

 The waters around me, turbulent,

 The skies, impassive o'er me,

 Calm in a moonless, sunless light,

 As glorified by even the intent

 Of holding the day glory!

 Love me, sweet friends, this sabbath day.

 The sea sings round me while ye roll afar

 The hymn, unaltered,

 And kneel, where once I knelt to pray,

 And bless me deeper in your soul

 Because your voice has faltered.

 And though this sabbath comes to me

 Without the stolèd minister,

 And chanting congregation,

 God's Spirit shall give comfort.

 He who brooded soft on waters drear,

 Creator on creation.

 He shall assist me to look higher,

               He shall assist me to look higher,

 Where keep the saints, with harp and song,

 An endless endless sabbath morning,

               An endless sabbath morning,

 And on that sea commixed with fire,

               On that sea commixed with fire,

 Oft drop their eyelids raised too long

 To the full Godhead's burning.

               The full Godhead's burning.

4. Where Corals Lie

by Richard Garnett (1835-1906)

 The deeps have music soft and low

 When winds awake the airy spry,

 It lures me, lures me on to go

 And see the land where corals lie.

                The land, the land where corals lie.

 By mount and mead, by lawn and rill,

 When night is deep, and moon is high,

 That music seeks and finds me still,

 And tells me where the corals lie.

                And tells me where the corals lie.

 Yes, press my eyelids close, 'tis well,

                Yes, press my eyelids close, 'tis well,

 But far the rapid fancies fly

 The rolling worlds of wave and shell,

 And all the lands where corals lie.

 Thy lips are like a sunset glow,

 Thy smile is like a morning sky,

 Yet leave me, leave me, let me go

 And see the land where corals lie.

                The land, the land where corals lie.

5. The Swimmer

by Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-1870)

 With short, sharp violent lights made vivid,

 To southward far as the sight can roam,

 Only the swirl of the surges livid,

 The seas that climb and the surfs that comb.

 Only the crag and the cliff to nor'ward,

 The rocks receding, and reefs flung forward,

 Waifs wreck'd seaward and wasted shoreward,

 On shallows sheeted with flaming foam.

 A grim, gray coast and a seaboard ghastly,

 And shores trod seldom by feet of men -

 Where the batter'd hull and the broken mast lie,

 They have lain embedded these long years ten.

 Love!  Love! when we wandered here together,

 Hand in hand! Hand in hand through the sparkling weather,

 From the heights and hollows of fern and heather,

 God surely loved us a little then.

 The skies were fairer, the shores were firmer -

 The blue sea over the bright sand roll'd;

 Babble and prattle, and ripple and murmur,

 Sheen of silver and glamour of gold.

               Sheen of silver and glamour of gold.

 So, girt with tempest and wing'd with thunder

 And clad with lightning and shod with sleet,

 And strong winds treading the swift waves under

 The flying rollers with frothy feet.

 One gleam like a bloodshot sword-blade swims on

 The sky line, staining the green gulf crimson,

 A death-stroke fiercely dealt by a dim sun

 That strikes through his stormy winding sheet.

 O brave white horses! you gather and gallop,

 The storm sprite loosens the gusty rains;

 O brave white horses! you gather and gallop,

 The storm sprite loosens the gusty rains;

 Now the stoutest ship were the frailest shallop

 In your hollow backs, on your high-arched manes.

 I would ride as never man has ridden

 In your sleepy, swirling surges hidden;

 I would ride as never man has ridden

 To gulfs foreshadow'd through strifes forbidden,

 Where no light wearies and no love wanes.

 No love,

 Where no love, no love wanes.

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.