Fand Catalogue

  

The Heart of Man

Five A. E. Housman Songs

for voice and piano

John Mitchell

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.

The five songs in The Heart of Man focus on the various aspects of pessimism and negativity that permeate so much of Housman’s verse. The first song questions whether material prosperity in later years is counterbalanced by a loss of youthful innocence, whilst in the second the narrator describes a return to a rural scene from his earlier life, only to find his former friends there have already perished. The jangling church bells in the third song sound as a metaphor for an unfulfilled life, followed by a song that asks whether there is any point in carrying on in such a hopeless situation. The final song queries whether happiness can perhaps be illusory, concluding that “…The heart of man … was never happy long.”

—John Mitchell, September 2025

Sample pages

(Click to enlarge)

		Composer	Title	Vocal range	Forces	Total duration
		John Mitchell	The Heart of Man Five A. E. Housman Songs for voice and piano	C♯ to E'	Voice, Piano	6½ mins
	#	Composer	Movement		Forces	Duration
	1	John Mitchell Words: A. E. Housman	1. The Way to Fair		Voice, Piano	1½ mins
	2		2. Farm and Steeple			1¾ mins
	3		3. Justling Bells			¾ minute
	4		4. If it chance			1 minute
	5		5. Adam in Eden			1½ mins

Catalogue code: FM300 • Published: 1st September 2025
Entry last updated: 1st September 2025