BRITISH MUSIC SOCIETY OF NORTHERN IRELAND 1953 1954 THIRD RECITAL under the auspices of THE QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY OF BELFAST LAURENS BOGTMAN Baritone ERNEST LUSH Pianoforte The Sir William Whitla Hall Queen's University, Belfast FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4th 1953

N.B. The Committee regrets that it has proved impossible to obtain the words of a few of the songs in time to give an account of them in this programme. Franz Schubert (1797-1828) I Aufenthalt (From the posthumous Schwanengesang. Words by Rellstab). Howl wind, roar river. Wilderness, my wilderness, your fury of rain matches my tears. As your winds creak and the strong branch is rent, so is my heart breaking. Roar river, break heart. Sehnsucht (Of the four songs written by Schubert with this title, that of 1826 to words by Seidl may be intended here). The poet is shut in his room and stares forlornly through the frosty window at the glittering sky: he is loveless and songless. Das Lied im Grünen, Op. 115 (Words by Reil). Spring. Some young god has said the word; and out of the earth daffodils and bluebells come crowding up madly, and blackbirds and larks in crowds are mad with a mixture of business and pleasure. And something sets us laughing and talking nineteen to the dozen and more than half believing we have only to say the word to get anything in life we chose to ask for. Spring, spring, where is the young god? If I can't see him I can hear plainly what he says. "Gather ye rosebuds, rosebuds." Dithyrambe, Op. 60, No. 2 (Words by Schiller. Composed 1824). A strophic setting of Schiller's ode. A procession of the gods is supposed to appear. They are enumerated and, as Bacchus heads the heavenly rout, the whole is set to music appropriate to him. II Erlkönig, Op. 1 Franz Schubert (Words by Goethe. Composed 1815). The story of the father riding through the night with his child in his arms, of how the Erlking attempts to entice him away to play in a fairyland, of how the father in terror keeps galloping on till he reaches home, where the child lies dead in his arms.

Robert Schumann (1810-1856) (Words by Goethe). A child who dislikes going to church is told by his mother that the bell commands him to go and that, if he refuses, it will come and fetch him. The child, knowing the bell is in the tower, takes to the fields and is comforted when he hears it stop ringing; but to his horror he sees it following him. Dreading lest it should cover him, he runs as fast as he can go and into the church. Thereafter he becomes a confirmed Sabbatarian. Die Wandelnde Glocke Die Heinzelmännchen Karl Loewe (1796-1869) The brownie or pixie. (The words are unfortunately not available). III Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) Der Schildwache Nachtlied (This, and the next song, are from the collection of folk. poems known as Des Knaben Wunderhorn, thirteen of which Mahler set to music between 1888 and 1890). The sentry stands sadly at his post, dreaming of his beloved and longing to be with her. But at his post he must stand. His service is to his God and his King, and his duty keeps him there. Halt, who goes there? Who sings so sweetly, enchanting him? Alas, strong is the midnight spell, sentinel. Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt (Mahler developed the music of this into the Scherzo of his Second Symphony). St. Antony of Padua, finding the churches deserted, turns to preaching to the fishes. They come tumbling to hear him and their names and numbers are racily described. They listen with great devotion : "But when it is finished, their zeal is diminished, The pike fall to preying, the eels to their playing. They listened with pleasure, forgetting at leisure. The crabs still go backward, the cod's fat and awkward, The carp's still a glutton, the sermon's forgotten. For all his endeavour they're sinful as ever, Sinful as ever, as ever." Trans.-NANCY BUSH.

Um Schlimme Kinder Artig zu Machen "How to make naughty children good." (Alas, the words of this interesting recipe are not forthcoming). IV Henri Duparc (1848-1933) (In spite of his long life, Duparc stopped composing very early, about 1885, and published remarkably little. He is known entirely for a handful of songs, variously given in different reputable handbooks as twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen or sixteen in num- ber. The twelve and thirteen are manifestly wrong, as there are thirteen in the standard collection Mélodies, which does not include the first one to be sung Le galop). Le galop INTERVAL (Words not available). Testament (Words by Armand Silvestre). That the wind may carry them to you I will write on a dead leaf the tortures of my dead soul. My sap has been dried by the sun of your beauty; your eyes, like merciless suns have burned into my soul. The autumn will carry me off like the leaf but, before that, I will write the tortures of my dead soul on the dead leaf that it may carry them to you. La vague et la Cloche (Words by François Coppée). I dreamed that I was adrift without a beacon, at the mercy of the wind and waves, and struggled without hope of reaching the shore. The waves were about to overwhelm me when my dream changed. I was in a belfry astride a frantic bell. I closed my eyes and embraced it frantically as it rocked the tower with the frenzy of its movement. Why did you not tell me, oh dream, where God was leading us: will the ever- lasting struggle and the perpetual din never cease?

V Sawishna (Words by the composer. Composed 1866). Mussorgsky him- self has described the scene which inspired this song. "An unhappy idiot was declaring his love for a young woman who had attracted him. He was pleading with her, though ashamed of his unseemliness and his unhappy condition; he himself understood he could have nothing in the world-least of all the happiness of love." The vocal line suggests the rise and fall of the idiot's voice by an unvaried row of crotchets for forty-seven bars and the pianoforte the agitated movement of his pleading hands. Der Seminarist (Words by the composer. Composed 1866). A theological student is gabbling over his list of Latin words of the third declension. His studies are interrupted by a flow of thoughts. "Panis, piscis, etc., curse on the priest . . . I was thrashed by him soundly . . . . His daughter with her rosy cheeks is charming. ... How I should have loved to embrace her.... The other day in church I saw her and would have loved to kiss her, but the father saw me and drubbed me soundly So the Devil tempted me in church itself 11 VI ... Modeste Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839-1881) Mephisto's Lied in Auerbachs Kellar (Set to words from Strugovshchikov's translation of Goethe's Faust. Composed 1879). A king who ruled a nation had a great fat flea. He ordered his tailor to come and make him courtier's clothes and promoted him to be minister. All the flea's kin are made great lords. All, queen and chambermaid, are bitten and sore; yet not one of them might hunt them or scratch. We hunt them and crack them when we feel a bite. And wilt thou leave me thus? Robin Goodfellow The Bachelor .. Peter Warlock (1894-1930)