Ellis: Spindrift Op.3 for baritone or contralto and piano

Description

LIVING COMPOSERS SERIES
FE4003 baritone and piano (4003a)
contralto and piano (4003b)

Five songs to poems by E. G. Buckeridge for baritone and piano. Also available for contralto and piano.

This song cycle by James Ellis takes poems from the collection Spindrift by E. G. Buckeridge. He was killed in his first day in action in 1917, so he is a war poet, albeit an almost unknown one (though his son Anthony is better known, as the author of Jennings). The poems have some similarity to Ivor Gurney and Walter de la Mere, and treat of themes of life and death, love and loss. The cycle is cast in the English song tradition, lyrical, rich in emotional evocation, with an underlying streak of melancholy, but a growing sense of transcendence as the cycle progresses. Its preoccupation with loss and death also calls to mind Winterreise and Schwanengesang, a tradition the composer is much minded to follow. It lasts about 20 minutes.

Piano Score (baritone and piano 4003a) £12

Piano Score (contralto and piano 4003b) £12