“ … when each man plays his part and heeds his fellow little more than these blue waves that kiss the shore, Take heed of how the daisies grow. O fools! and if ye could but know, how fair a world to you is given.”
My choral symphony was commissioned by the BBC to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the BBC Symphony Chorus. It was premiered by them and the BBC Symphony Orchestra
at the Barbican Centre under Sir Andrew Davis in 2010.
The piece sets four poems by William Morris, who was more famous as a poet than a designer when he was alive. Each of the four movements sets a different aspect of his work. First, The Doomed Ship describes, in allegorical terms, the love triangle between the poet, his friend Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Morris’s wife Janey. Then, O Dwellers on the Lovely Earth shows his feelings for nature and his thoughts about religion.
The Hill of Venus is a account of how the German knight, Walter, was captured by the goddess of love. This is an actual story from Morris’s The Earthly Paradise collection, which contains many tales from Greek and Norse myths.
Finally, Iceland First Seen, describes his arrival in the Saga island which Morris called “the Holy land”. I describe this movement as a kind of “radio play”, culminating with his lovely words: “but there, mid the grey grassy dales, sore scarred by the ruining streams, lives the tale of the Northland of old and the undying glory of dreams”
