Saturday 20th June 2026
Originally from Devon, Freddie Crowley (pronounced crow, as in the bird of genus Corvus…) and the Corvus Consort have a wide ranging programme from renaissance madrigals to contemporary compositions of traditional and original music and poetry set to music inspired by all aspects of birds.
Please note that the following programme notes include original poetry, which may not be exactly the words sung or set by composers, and in many cases, there is no singular official version anyway. Freddie is famed for his insightful introductions and these notes do not replace that!
Vaughan Williams’ “Silence and Music” is a setting of a poem written by Ursula Wood (1911-2007). When they were married in 1953, Ralph set this poem to music with a dedication “To the memory of Charles Villiers Stanford, and his Blue Bird” (which we’ll hear later) and contributed this to “A Garland for the Queen”, a musical tribute for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation.
Silence, come first: I see a sleeping swan,
wings closed and drifting where the water leads,
a winter moon, a grove where shadows dream,
a hand outstretched to gather hollow reeds.
The four winds in their litanies can tell
all of earth’s stories as they weep and cry,
the sea names all the treasure of her tides
the birds rejoice between the earth and sky.
Voices of grief and from the heart of joy;
so near to comprehension do we stand
that wind and sea all of winged delight
lie in the octaves of man’s voice and hand
and music wakes from silence, where it slept.
The titular “I have a million nightingales” is a setting by Jewish cantor and songwriter Linda Hirschhorn of an Arabic poem by Mahmoud Darwish.
You may fasten my chains
Deprive me of my books and tobacco
You may fill my mouth with earth
Poetry will feed my heart, like blood
It is salt to the bread
And liquid to the eye
I will write it with nails,
eye sockets and daggers,
I will recite it in my prison cell -
in the bathroom -
in the stable -
Under the whip -
Under the chains -
In spite of my handcuffs
I have a million nightingales
On the branches of my heart
Singing the song of liberation.
Finzi’s Nightingales is a setting of the Robert Bridges (1844-1930) poem of the same name, and was published as No. 5 of his Seven Unaccompanied Partsongs Op. 17. The setting was written between 1934 and 1937, and the Bridges poem, published in 1893 in “The Shorter Poems of Robert Bridges”, Book V.
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.
Orlando Gibbons composed works in many of the forms available to him in the English renaissance period: viol consort, keyboards, verse anthems and as we have here, madrigals. The Silver Swan from 1612 is a well known “Swansong” inspired by the legend that swans sing only at the moment of their death. Gibbons seems to be responsible for the earliest setting of this apparently anonymous text, and there has been speculation that it is his own work.
The silver Swan who living had no note,
When death approached unlocked her silent throat;
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,
Thus sang her first and last, and sung no more:
"Farewell all joys! O death come close mine eyes,
More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise."
The text for “Un cygne avance sur l’eau” (A swan moves across the water) set by Paul Hindemith in 1939 was written by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) in 1924 and is from the collection, “Poèmes français”
Un cygne avance sur l'eau
tout entouré de lui-même,
comme un glissant tableau;
ainsi à certains instants
un être que l'on aime
est tout un espace mouvant.
Il se rapproche, doublé,
comme ce cygne qui nage,
sur notre âme troublée...
qui à cet être ajoute
la tremblante image
de bonheur et de doute.
Continuing the programme’s Swan inspirations, “Il Bianco e Dolce Cigno” (The white and sweet swan) is a well known Italian madrigal by the Flemish composer Jacques Arcadelt. The text was written in 1539 by Giovanni Guidiccioni (1480–1541) who was an Italian poet and Catholic bishop of Fossombrone, and is concerned with an unrequited lover’s death using the metaphor of the death of a swan.
Il bianco e dolce cigno
cantando more, ed io
piangendo, giung' al fin del viver mio.
Stran' e diversa sorte,
ch'ei more sconsolato,
Ed io moro beato.
Morte che nel morire
M'empie di gioia tutt' e di desire;
Se nel morir' altro dolor non sento,
Di mille mort' il di sarei contendo.
Shifting across the Atlantic, Freddie Crowley’s own arrangement of “The Blackest Crow” is an anonymous American folk song that has inspired many arrangements, of which possibly the best known is by Altan (certainly to me!). The text seems to have found its way deeply into Irish and Scottish traditions, and as such, there is no longer an “authentic” version of the words.
As time draws near, my dearest dear,
When you and I must part,
What little you know of the grace and awe
Of my poor aching heart.
Each night I suffer for your sake,
You're the one I love so dear;
I wish that I was going with you,
Or you were staying here.
I wish my breast was made of glass
Wherein you might behold
Oh there your name I's wrote, my dear,
In letters made of gold.
Oh there your name I's wrote, my dear,
Believe me what I say,
You are the one I love the best
Until my dying day.
The crow that is so black, my love,
will surely turn to white
If ever I prove false to you,
Bright day return to night.
Bright day return to night, my love
The elements will mourn,
If ever I prove false to you
The seas will rage and burn.
And when you're on some distant shore,
Think of your absent friend,
And when the wind blows high and clear,
A line to me, pray send.
And when the wind blows high and clear,
Pray send a note to me,
That I might know by your handwrite
How time has gone with thee.
The Seagull (aka is”The Seagull of the Land-under-Waves”) a traditional folk song from the Isle of Skye, and John Hearne (whose arrangement we hear) claims this to be his most performed work. Part of the musical inspiration is from the seagull’s cry – something to listen out for!
Snow white seagull high ...
Tell to me
Where, ah, where thou rest them
Where our fair young lads are resting.
Grief within my heart is nesting ....
Heart to heart they lie,
Side by side,
Seafoam the sigh
From their cold lips coming;
Seawrack their shroud
And their harp the cold sea moaning.
Grief within my heart is nesting ....
Snow white seagull high ...
Tell to me
Where, ah, where thou rest them
Where our fair young lads are resting.
Seawrack their shroud
And their harps the cold sea moaning.
Grief within my heart is nesting ...
Celestial Bird is a mystical poem by Jessica Powers (1905-1988). Jessica had Celtic ancestry which Panufnik picked up in this setting from 2013: “I have heard her described as an ‘artist, painting words’—which fits my overt style of word-painting in music”. Later, Jessica became a Carmelite Nun in Wisconsin.
O sweet and luminous Bird,
Having once heard your call, lovely and shy
I shall be hungry for the finished word.
Across the windy sky
Of all voiced longing and all music heard,
I spread my net for your bewildering wings,
But wings are wiser than the swiftest hands.
Where a bird sings
I held my heart, in fear that it would break.
I called you through the grief of whip-poor-wills,
I watched you on the avenues that make
A radiant city on the western hills.
Yet since I knew you not, I sought in vain.
I called you beauty for its fleet white sound.
But now in my illuminated heart
I can release the hound
Of love upon whose bruising leash I strain.
Oh, he will grasp you where you skim the sod,
Nor wound your breast, for love is soft as death,
Swifter than beauty is, and strong as God.
Vaughan Williams’ dedication of his setting of “Silence and Music” to the memory of Stanford’s “Blue Bird” shows how important he regarded Stanford’s 1910 setting of the poem “L’Oiseau Bleu” by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, originally written in 1897. As an interesting aside, Coleridge used the pseudonym “Anodos” for this publication, which is supposed to mean “Wanderer” after the use of this description in a novel by George MacDonald, “Phantastes”. It was published under her own name posthumously in 1908. The imagery here is that of a Blue Bird flying low over the reflective waters of a lake. Stanford’s “Eight Part songs” are all settings of this poet, and “Blue Bird” is No. 3.
The lake lay blue below the hill.
O'er it, as I looked, there flew
Across the waters, cold and still,
A bird whose wings were palest blue.
The sky above was blue at last,
The sky beneath me blue in blue.
A moment, ere the bird had passed,
It caught his image as he flew.
Caroline Shaw was the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music and her works frequently use extended vocal techniques, some of which are heard in “And the swallow” as the performers evoke the sound of autumn rainfall. Shaw has said that she had the Syrian refugee crisis in mind as she composed: “There’s a yearning for a home that feels very relevant today. The second verse is: “The sparrow found a house and the swallow her nest, where she may place her young” which is just a beautiful image of a bird trying to keep her children safe—people trying to keep their family safe.’ This work is a setting of Psalm 84.
1 How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!
My soul has a desire and longing to enter the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.
2 The sparrow has found her a house
and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young:
at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.
3 Blessed are they who dwell in your house:
they will always be praising you.
4 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion,
5 Who going through the barren valley find there a spring,
and the early rains will clothe it with blessing.
6 They will go from strength to strength
and appear before God in Zion.
7 O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;
listen, O God of Jacob.
8 Behold our defender, O God,
and look upon the face of your anointed.
9 For one day in your courts
is better than a thousand.
10 I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of ungodliness.
11 For the Lord God is both sun and shield;
he will give grace and glory;
no good thing shall the Lord withhold
from those who walk with integrity.
12 O Lord God of hosts,
blessed are those who put their trust in you.
From Henry VIII’s songbook, William Cornysh wrote the words and music for “Ah Robin”, a particularly beautiful and simple song in that collection. The tune feels like a woven fabric with three voices repeatedly and incisively singing similar versions of a short four-bar phrase as the layers are built.
Ah, Robin, gentle Robin,
Tell me how thy leman doth,
And thou shalt know of mine.
My lady is unkind, I wis,
Alac why is she so?
She lov’th another better than me,
And yet she will say no.
Ah, Robin ...
I cannot think such doubleness,
For I find women true;
In faith my lady lov’th me well,
She will change for no new.
Ah, Robin ...
when out walking
“To a Skylark” is a celebrated Romantic ode by Percy Bysshe Shelley, inspired by the sound of a skylark heard when out walking near Livorno, Italy in 1820. Later Mary Shelly describes this insight as “In the Spring we spent a week or two near Leghorn (Livorno) … It was on a beautiful summer evening while wandering among the lanes whose myrtle hedges were the bowers of the fire-flies, that we heard the carolling of the skylark.” The part setting by Cornish composer Becky McGlade was also inspired by the sound of skylarks near the sea. Listen for the very quiet conclusion holding on the the birdsong right to the end that has been the mainstay of the work throughout.
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad day-light
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,
Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflow'd.
What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
Like a high-born maiden
In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aerial hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:
Like a rose embower'd
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflower'd,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:
Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awaken'd flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
Chorus Hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Match'd with thine would be all
But an empty vaunt,
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest: but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
Composed during the First World War, and like Le tombeau de Couperin, the Trois Chansons was a personal response to the war horrors Ravel experienced as a transport corps driver and beyond. All three pieces are homage to the Renaissance chanson, and all texts are written by Ravel. Trois Beaux Oiseaux (du Paradis) is the central of these three chanson, preceded by the witty Nicolette and followed by the virtuosic Ronde. Trois Beaux Oiseaux itself is inspired by three birds whose colours are blue, white and red of the French flag.
Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis
Mon ami z-il est à la guerre
Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis
Ont passé par ici.
Le premier était plus bleu que le ciel,
(Mon ami z-il est à la guerre)
Le second était couleur de neige,
Le troisième rouge vermeil.
"Beaux oiselets du Paradis,
(Mon ami z-il est à la guerre)
Beaux oiselets du Paradis,
Qu'apportez par ici?"
"J'apporte un regard couleur d'azur
(Ton ami z-il est à la guerre)"
"Et moi, sur beau front couleur de neige,
Un baiser dois mettre, encore plus pur."
Oiseau vermeil du Paradis,
(Mon ami z-il est à la guerre)
Oiseau vermeil du Paradis,
Que portez vous ainsi?
"Un joli coeur tout cramoisi"
Ton ami z-il est à la guerre
"Ha! je sens mon coeur qui froidit...
Emportez le aussi."
Legendary collector of traditional music, Vaughan Williams recorded David Penfold, Landlord of The Plough Inn in Rusper, Sussex, singing “The Turtle Dove” in 1907. This setting of the passionate words is warm and very sympathetic to their meaning.
Fare you well, my dear, I must be gone,
And leave you for a while;
If I roam away I'll come back again,
Though I roam ten thousand miles, my dear,
Though I roam ten thousand miles.
So fair thou art, my bonny lass,
So deep in love am I;
But I never will prove false to the bonny lass I love,
Till the stars fall from the sky, my dear,
Till the stars fall from the sky.
The sea will never run dry, my dear,
Nor the rocks melt with the sun,
But I never will prove false to the bonny lass I love,
Till all these things be done, my dear,
Till all these things be done.
O yonder doth sit that little turtle dove,
He doth sit on yonder high tree,
A-making a moan for the loss of his love,
As I will do for thee, my dear,
As I will do for thee.
I am most familiar with the Thomas Ravenscroft 1611 setting of this touching traditional English Folk ballad, “The Three Ravens”, but this has been set by many composers, not only Edward T. Chapman here, but also includes Percy Grainger, John Ireland and even Steeleye Span. The imagery is that of three ravens discussing a knight of whom they hope to make their next meal. Chapman’s setting includes a baritone solo which adds additional rich harmonies to the simple tune.
There were three ravens sat on a tree,
Down a down hey down hey down.
They were as black as they might be,
With a down.
Then one of them said to his mate:
"Where shall we our breakfast take?"
With a down derry derry derry down down.
Down in yonder greenfield,
Down a down hey down hey down.
There lies a knight slain under his shield;
With a down.
His hounds they lie down at his feet,
So well they their master keep.
With a down derry derry derry down down.
His hawks they fly so eagerly,
Down a down hey down hey down.
There is no fowl dare him come nigh
With a down.
But down there comes a fallow doe,
As great with young as she might go.
With a down derry derry derry down down.
She lifted up his bloody head,
Down a down hey down hey down.
And kissed his wounds that were so red.
With a down.
She got him up upon her back
And carried him to an earthen lake.
With a down derry derry derry down down.
She buried him before the prime,
Down a down hey down hey down.
She was dead herself ere evensong time.
With a down.
Now God send every gentleman
Such hounds, such hawks and such a leman.
With a down derry derry derry down down.
The originally four voice chanson “Le Chant des Oiseaux” by the 16th century French renaissance composer Clément Janequin is written to imitate and represent birdsong directly. Unusually for the period, Janequin composed very little liturgical music, concentrating instead on this chanson style, of which some 250 examples have survived, and which was very popular and frequently performed in his time. This chanson dates from about 1528, and has also been set for a mixed choir.
Reveillez vous, coeurs endormis
Le dieu d’amour vous sonne.
A ce premier jour de may,
Oyseaulx feront merveillez,
Pour vous mettre hors d’esmay
Destoupez vos oreilles.
Et farirariron (etc…)
Vous serez tous en ioye mis,
Car la saison est bonne.
Vous orrez, à mon advis,
Une dulce musique
Que fera le roy mauvis (le merle aussi)
D’une voix autentique.
Ty, ty, pyty. (etc…)
Rire et gaudir c’es mon devis,
Chacun s’i habandonne.
Rossignol du boys ioly,
A qui le voix resonne,
Pour vous mettre hors d’ennuy
Vostre gorge iargonne:
Frian, frian, frian (etc…)
Fuiez, regrez, pleurs et souci,
Car la saison l’ordonne.
Ariere maistre coucou,
Sortez de no chapitre.
Chacun vous donne au bibou,
Car vous n’estes q’un traistre.
Coucou, coucou (etc…)
Par traison en chacun nid,
Pondez sans qu’on vous sonne.
Reveillez vous, coeurs endormis,
Le dieu d’amours vous sonne.
The Scottish singer-songwriter Karine Polwart claims that her favourite bird is the Heron. And so the last work in tonight’s programme, Polwart’s “Follow the Heron (home)” from 2002 was written after she had been singing at a folk festival in Shetland. She says that the inspiration happened as she was being taken home by sea, in the early morning, a heron rose in front of the boat and flew ahead. In the song the heron represents the return of Spring, light after darkness, hope after grief.
The back of the winter is broken,
And light lingers long by the door.
And the seeds of the summer have spoken
In gowans that bloom on the shore
By night and day we'll sport and we'll play
And delight as the dawn dances over
the bay
Sleep blows the breath of the morning
away
And we follow the heron home
In darkness we cradled our sorrow
And stoked all our fires with fear
Now these bones that lie empty and hollow
Are ready for gladness to cheer
Long may we sing of the salmon
And the snow-scented sounds of your home
While the north wind delivers its sermon
Of ice, and salt water, and stone