piano

Come Again, Sweet Love Doth Now Invite

Posted by sara-garrard

“Come again, sweet love doth now invite” is a song with music John Dowland, anonymous lyrics. This is not that song. That is a great song though–very over the top sad and also very cute and catchy! This is music I wrote for those same lyrics.

Come again!
Sweet love doth now invite
Thy graces that refrain
To do me due delight,
To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die,
With thee again in sweetest sympathy.

Come again!
That I may cease to mourn
Through thy unkind disdain;
For now left and forlorn
I sit, I sigh, I weep, I faint, I die
In deadly pain and endless misery.

All the night
My sleeps are full of dreams,
My eyes are full of streams.
My heart takes no delight
Her smiles, my springs that makes my joys to grow,
Her frowns the Winters of my woe.

Out alas,
My faith is ever true,
Yet will she never rue
Nor yield me any grace;
Her eyes of fire, her heart of flint is made,
Whom neither tears nor truth may once persuade.

The first of a bit of a project of setting old/Elizabethan era lyrics/poetry to music…

Dowland, and others of the era, but Dowland was RENOWNED for it, wrote such enjoyably, beautifully, over-the-top melancholy tragic songs. This was super trendy and they were really POPULAR.

So, if there’s a concept here, it’s that I’m setting the words with the same kind of melancholy and sincerity despite their excessiveness, but in a more modern folk-pop-idk idiom, a sort of parallel.

Never weather beaten sail

Posted by sara-garrard

This is something between an original and an arrangement — I could hardly say I was going to improve on the Thomas Campion original (though, hey, at least there’s already something of a tradition of re using his words!) And also I was reading the words along with the music as I was coming up with my own tune… So this has some of the original tune along with some new/’updated’, I guess, bits.

Never weather-beaten sail
More willing bent to shore
Never tired pilgrims limbs
Affected slumber more
Than my weary sprite now longs
To fly out of my troubled breast
Oh come quickly
Oh come quickly
Oh come quickly sweetest Lord
And take my soul to rest

Ever blooming are the joys
Of heav’ns high paradise
Cold age deafs not there our ears
Nor vapour dims our eyes
Glory there the sun outshines
Whose beams the blessed only see
Oh come quickly
Oh come quickly
Oh come quickly glorious Lord
And raise my sprite to Thee

* the edition I had said cold age, I kid you not.

Love will find out the way

Posted by sara-garrard
Love will find out the way

in a change from my usual hymn settings 🙂 — here is a new tune for a famous old English lyric:

Over the mountains
And over the waves,
Under the fountains
And under the graves,
Under floods that are deepest,
Which Neptune obey
Over rocks which are the steepest,
Love will find out the way.

You may esteem him
A child for his might,
Or you may deem him
A coward from his flight.
But if she, whom Love doth honor,
Be concealed from the day
Set a thousand guards upon her,
Love will find out the way.

Some think to lose him
By having him confined
Some do suppose him,
Poor thing, to be blind;
But if ne’er so close ye wall him,
Do the best that you may,
Blind Love, if so ye call him,
Will find out his way.

You may train the eagle
To stoop to your fist.
You may train in veigle
The Phoenix of the east.
The lioness, you may move her
To give o’er her prey;
But you’ll ne’er stop a lover;
He will find out his way.

I’m thinking the kind of folk/lullaby you get in a movie? very simple.

Christmas ?Carols?

Posted by sara-garrard
As on the night..

As I may have mentioned, The Hymns and Carols of Christmas became pretty much my favourite site these last few years, and not just at Christmas… When I’m at a loose end one of my favourite things to do is make Christmas songs. (I try and completely ignore the original tunes of these lyrics, or ideally not know them in the first place.)

‘As on the night before this blessed morn’, words by George Wither, from here.

This is from sometime in November, alongside all the piano pieces. I had also just been to see Frozen 2, which … isn’t necessarily relevant, but it certainly put me in a musical theatre mood! Some more expressive vocal lines. The “whom nooor the earth nor (breath) HEavn of heavns can (breath) HOOOOLD” part is my favourite ^.^

1. As on the night before this blessed morn
A troop of Angels unto Shepherds told,
Where in a stable he was poorly born,
Whom nor the earth nor heaven of heavens can hold,
        Through Bethlehem rung.
    This news at their return ;
        Yea, Angels sung,
    That God with us was born 
And they made mirth, because we should not mourn.
2. This favour Christ vouchsafed for our sake :
To buy us thrones he in a manger lay ;
Our weakness took, that we his strength might take,
And was disrob'd, that he might us array :
        Our flesh he wore,
    Our sin to wear away :
        Our curse he bore,
    That we escape it may ;
And wept for us, that we might sing for aye.
Today in perfect Gladness

Another one, also just from the very end of November I think! here

1. Today in perfect gladness
    Our praises let us sing,
The Lord Who heals our sadness,
    Is born today our King,
The Lord Who, like a giant,
    His course doth run,
On His own strength reliant,
    Our righteous Sun.

2. In darkness He is lying
    Who gives the sky its light,
He in a stall is crying
    Who thunders in His might;
Swathes are those Hands enfolding
    Which made the stars,
Him swaddling bands are holding 
    Who breaketh down hell's bars.

3. He comes, redemption bringing,
    He comes, the Undefiled
The Rose from Lily springing,
    The Father from His Child.
He comes, with kingly banner
    Not yet unfurl'd,
He comes, in wondrous manner,
    To save the world.

I had some trouble with the word “burils” in the original lyrics… “who burrils hell’s bars”. Even if I was sure what it meant (seems to maybe be a blacksmith/carpentry tool, which is NEAT but…) … it’s not going to translate well to a random listener I fear.

I would like to make something with all these Christmas songs, and the increasing amount of “modern hymn”(?) settings (..a lot of Catherine Winkworth, basically. I’ve got the entire Lyre Germanica to go through now and I am unstoppable.) … A book? for….. some people? I suppose choral settings would be the thing. Or different versions, some of them are fairly solo/unison/pop, right?