Weiland, Douglas Triptych: Songs opp. 67-68-69

Seven Songs to Poems by ROBERT FROST OP.67
Four Songs to Poems by EDWARD THOMAS OP.68
Cycle of Six Songs to Poems by THE ‘DYMOCK’ POETS OP.69

DOUGLAS GORDON WEILAND (2023)

Descriptive, personal note from the composer.

These three sets of songs are fashioned, one could say, in large part from two genres: Schubert’s lieder and 20th Century English Song.

Whilst, strictly speaking, the set of songs called Dymock is the only one of the three a ‘cycle’ – the musical material enough of a common bond – the three sets could be thought of as linked together throughout by an intimacy of purpose: the poems, the remarkable yet brief friendship between the two great poets Edward Thomas and Robert Frost, (both ‘members’ of the Dymock group) and the moving relationship between Edward and his wife, Helen.

The Dymock Poets, so-called because on the eve of the First World War they congregated around the English rural Gloucestershire village of Dymock, comprised Edward Thomas, Robert Frost, John Drinkwater, Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Lascelles Abercrombie and Rupert Brooke. In the cycle one song is assigned a poem from each poet.

Edward Thomas, one suspects significantly influenced by Frost’s perception and encouragement, became a poet who produced his prodigious output within the space of a couple of years. An output terminated by Thomas’s death at Pas-de-Calais, France in April 1917 at the age of 39.

The setting of Thomas’s poem And You, Helen concludes the middle set of four devoted to him and is a tribute to husband and wife – the precious fruit of a far-away glimpse at that very special relationship. Likewise in the Dymock Cycle, two of the shortest poems that Edward Thomas and Robert Frost wrote, are set and placed here, one at the outset, one at the close; these are especially interlinked, the musical text mirroring each other if you like, and serve affectionately, symbolically, as bookends for the set, with the four remaining Dymock Poets contained within the sphere appointed by the other two.

This creative journey began with Robert Frost, whose poems were all new to me, and each song would also facilitate for me a special gift to special friends far and near. The songs in the Frost set each bear the additional dedication.

There is the old question, what came first (in the creative process of the music), the words or the music? I suspect the answer may differ, depending on a number of things and may even on occasion be unclear. In my case, in the writing of these songs, the answer is clear-cut, yet requires careful articulation. If I am honest, because I have always seen life through the lenses of the art of Music it has been a mighty flaw in me that the spoken word has tended to leave me for dead. I came to recognise this, but at no point more clearly than in this new acquaintance with Frost and Thomas. The curious thing is, paradoxically, this would not have been so without the simultaneous creating of the music. In black and white I am saying that, on approaching the first poem, Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, I had no idea what the words were saying. No idea that is that mattered. The words were there already, but there was no music. And it took several failed attempts to ‘find’ a newly inspired strain of music that, in my perception, spoke back to the words that thus far meant little to me. Hence probably the initial failed attempts. I searched and floundered around for about 1 hour. At which point, as if stumbling, knew I had found what I was looking for. It was a big moment, for from then on a

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vital to-and-fro took place, words to music, music to words and before I knew it there it was, the first song. The words were there, the music came, the words came to life. I discovered by this process what wonderful, remarkable, priceless poems I was dealing with. Like I said: clear cut..

The score of the Edward Thomas Songs contains the following three inscriptions:

Written for Benjamin Weiland
In solemn memory of Helen & Edward Thomas Dedicated to Claus-Christian Schuster

All the songs contained herein were inspired two-fold. First, by my son – at the time of writing a trainee solicitor and baritone. Second, by my dear friend, the distinguished Viennese pianist, musician-grandee, Claus-Christian Schuster. The Dymock Cycle idea was entirely Claus- Christian’s. Their recording of Seven Songs to Poems by Robert Frost – from various viewpoints an unlikely triumph in our modern era – is a fitting culmination of our artistic endeavours.

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