Fand Catalogue

Morningtide

Three Housman Songs

for voice and piano

John Mitchell

£10.45

A. E. Housman (1859–1936) was a classical scholar who is now best known for his volume of verse, A Shropshire Lad, first published in 1896. With their evocation of the English countryside, thwarted love and a yearning for things lost, his poems are probably still as popular today as when they first appeared. Their content and regular metres made them especially appealing to composers for setting to music, and here such prominent figures as Arthur Somervell, Ralph Vaughan Williams, George Butterworth, John Ireland and E. J. Moeran immediately come to mind.

Because the majority of poems from A Shropshire Lad have been so memorably set to music already, for the present publication I deliberately avoided this Housman source. Following its great success, the poet then went on to publish three further collections of verse, which are not as well known as A Shropshire Lad, and from each I have chosen a single poem for Morningtide. The curious title here reflects that all three songs relate variously to an early morning time of day.

—John Mitchell, August 2022

Sample pages

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Catalogue code: FM253 • Published: 3rd September 2022
Entry last updated: 3rd September 2022