Fand Catalogue

  

Summer’s Hue

Four Edward Shanks Songs

for voice and piano

John Mitchell

The English writer Edward Shanks (1892–1953) is probably best known as a war poet, having served in World War One until being invalided out in 1915. Much of his career was spent as a literary reviewer, and apart from his verse he penned several novels, including a single science fiction one, and The Old Indispensables (1919), which has some similarities with the TV comedy series Yes, Minister, dealing as it does with the farcical goings-on within the Whitehall bureaucracy. He also provided a libretto for Ethel Smyth’s opera, Fète Galante.

Summer’s Hue was composed in the spring of 2024 and sets four of Shanks’ non-WW1 poems. In On High Hills the narrator recalls a youthful romantic moment centred around the East Sussex village of Fletching. The second song is in the way of an observation of nature—how in the twilight the reflection of overhanging hawthorn blossom gave an illusion of it floating on the surface of a pool. Long After sees Shanks in a darker mood, musing on how the beauty of the countryside will continue after we are no more. The song group ends brightly with Come Dance Away!, a dance in the style of a polka, where the poet tempts a girl to dance with him alone, away from the crowd and where the lack of light is of no consequence. The coda (poco più mosso) perhaps suggests his overture to the young lady has been successful!

—John Mitchell, August 2024

Sample pages

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		Composer	Title	Vocal range	Forces	Total duration
		John Mitchell	Summer’s Hue Four Edward Shanks Songs for voice and piano	C♯ to G'	Voice, Piano	6¼ mins
	#	Composer	Movement		Forces	Duration
	1	John Mitchell Words: Edward Shanks	1. On High Hills		Voice, Piano	1½ mins
	2		2. The Pool and May			1¼ mins
	3		3. Long After			1¾ mins
	4		4. Come Dance Away!			1½ mins

Catalogue code: FM285 • Published: 27th July 2024
Entry last updated: 27th July 2024