Description
Pearce, Malcolm: Madrigals on the River (SATB)
Ref
CM045
Categories
Camden Music
,
Choral Music
By
Malcolm Pearce
A perfect evocation of summer on the Oxford waterways. Maida Stanier’s poem celebrates a long-standing tradition of Magdalen College School, Oxford (as well as alluding briefly to the famous May Day celebrations on Magdalen College tower). On the last evening of each Trinity Term the school’s Madrigal Society sings madrigals and part-songs from punts moored to a bank of the River Cherwell that flows round the school’s picturesque island playing-field. By custom, the concert ends with John Bennet’s
Weep, O mine eyes
, sung as the punts drift away out of earshot of the audience.
Madrigals on the River
was originally intended to be sung in conjunction with this madrigalian masterpiece and may act as a prelude to its performance in the key of A minor.
