Ralph Vaughan Williams - The Turtle Dove (Tenebrae)

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★★★ My playlist with English choral pieces:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zBcoGv_ic8&list=PLCby7t-aPVUlH5zVHPG2w8xO437TCVf1j

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958):
THE TURTLE DOVE

Ralph Vaughan Williams was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.

"The Turtle Dove" (also known as "Fare Thee Well") is an 18th-century English folk ballad, in which a lover bids farewell before setting off on a journey. The lyrics include a dialogue between the lovers.

Vaughan Williams came across the melody in November of 1904, while on a folksong collecting expedition in Sussex. In 1919 he published it in an arrangement for male chorus, but it is more commonly heard in this setting for solo baritone and mixed chorus, published in 1924. The melody is first introduced by the baritone, who takes on the role of the traveler, destined to roam the earth while the love of his heart is to remain behind. As the intensity of the lyric grows, so does the activity of the choir. This continues until the third verse, where the choir's florid lines take on the character of the seas that the traveler must traverse. The work ends quietly, as it began, with the baritone bemoaning the loss of his love.

Fare you well, my dear, I must be gone,
And leave you for a while;
If I roam away I'll come back again,
Though I roam ten thousand miles, my dear,
Though I roam ten thousand miles.

So fair thou art, my bonny lass,
So deep in love am I;
But I never will prove false to the bonny lass I love,
Till the stars fall from the sky, my dear,
Till the stars fall from the sky.

The sea will never run dry, my dear,
Nor the rocks melt with the sun,
But I never will prove false to the bonny lass I love,
Till all these things be done, my dear,
Till all these things be done.

O yonder doth sit that little turtle dove,
He doth sit on yonder high tree,
A-making a moan for the loss of his love,
As I will do for thee, my dear,
As I will do for thee.

Recorded in St Alban the Martyr, Holborn, London (2011)

Gabriel Crouch (baritone)
Tenebrae
Conducted by Nigel Short

Other videos with Tenebrae & Nigel Short:

Edward Elgar - They Are At Rest
https://youtu.be/2zBcoGv_ic8

Rachmaninoff - Blessed is the Man
https://youtu.be/s1ZCb_RkxSs

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★★★ My playlist with English choral pieces:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zBcoGv_ic8&list=PLCby7t-aPVUlH5zVHPG2w8xO437TCVf1j