portrait by Hayley Masom

Mother, I will have a husband

A programme of English and Italian songs on the theme: The Illusion of Romance - notes

Mother, I will have a husband . Words by Thomas Vautor (1619) and set to music by Gordon Jacob ( 1895-1984) in 1938. Thomas Vautor was a poet and composer of madrigals, who entered the service of the Duke of Buckingham, Sir George Villiers. Details of his life are sketchy. Gordon Jacob was a composer, teacher and professor at the Royal College of Music in London for 40 years. Jacob highlights the wilfulness of the young woman in this setting. She seems blissfully unaware that maybe her own wilfulness is the reason that she hasn't got a husband yet. "John a Dun, should have had me long 'ere this..." possibly because she has "good lips to kiss". She hopes, wistfully, for something more than just a husband, "For I have heard tis trim when folks do love..."

Any girl of fifteen and over, from Cosi fan tutte . Music by Wolfgang A Mozart (1756 - 1791), libretto by Lorenzo di Ponte. Performed first in Vienna in 1789. Don Alfonso, a cynical old bachelor, bets Ferrando and Guglielmo that their fiancees, the two sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella, will not remain faithful in their absence if wooed by other men. The two young men disguise themselves as Albanians, and each woos the other's fiance. Don Alfonso bribes the women's maid, Despina, who is rather more worldly-wise than her mistresses, to help him in his plot, without revealing the true identities of the men. In this song, Despina proposes that any woman worth her salt should use her wiles to get her own way. It isn't really about love, but manipulation. The title of the opera translates as All Women are like this, but perhaps it should be Cosi fan Tutti, Everybody is like this. Although the opera ends with the revelation of the plot, and mutual forgiveness, we never learn who ends up with whom.

An Epithalamium (a wedding blessing). From The Fairy Queen , music by Henry Purcell (1659-1695), librettist unknown. The Fairy Queen is a semi-opera loosely based on A Midsummer Night's Dream by one, W. Shakespeare. The semi-opera was a fusion of the Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatic tradition, and lavish court masques and dance, characteristic of the Restoration period. The piece was first performed at the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Gardens, on 2nd May 1692, possibly as a birthday tribute to Queen Mary. Apparently, the expenses of the production were so great, that nobody made any money out of it. Oberon conjures up Juno, the classical goddess of marriage, near the end of the performance, to bless the marriages of Hermia with Lysander, Helena with Demetrius, and Hippolyta with Duke Theseus.

Two Folk songs by Benjamin Britten. Britten (1913 - 1976) wrote a great deal for the voice, largely influenced by his life-long relationship with the singer Peter Pears. His texts and librettos are virtually all in English, re-establishing the language in the pantheon of classical music. He published settings for two volumes of British folk songs, and one volume of French folk songs between 1943 and 1948, after his return from America, whither he had departed at the outbreak of war when he was 25. He and Pears returned to England in 1942 and undertook many recitals at venues throughout the UK, including prisons, as their contribution to the war effort. Sweet Polly Oliver is from the set dedicated to the soprano Joan Cross, who, along with Britten and Pears, was a founding member of the English Opera Group. O Can Ye Sew Cushions was dedicated to Meg Mundy, who could be closely related to Clytie Mundy, Pears' singing teacher in America. Writing in an American magazine on folk song arranging in 1941, Britten speaks of "the weakness of the tunes, which seldom have any striking rhythms or memorable melodic features." His arrangements are distinctive in that they almost stand as musical pieces in their own right, while harmonising with the melodies. As you will hear, they are a tour de force for the pianist, whereas the singer simply has to sing the line.

The Sky Above the Roof . Music by Ralph Vaughan-Williams (1872 - 1958), poem by Paul Verlaine, translated into English by Mabel Dearmer. Ralph Vaughan-Williams also spent a lifetime setting English words to music and was fascinated by the mystical. He wrote the music for this famous poem by Verlaine in 1908, when he had been studying composition with the French composer, Ravel, in Paris in 1908. Of this experience, Vaughan-Williams wrote, "He showed me how to orchestrate in points of colour rather than in lines." Ravel visited him in England in 1909, where nothing pleased him so much as enjoying steak and kidney pudding with stout for lunch at Waterloo Station. Little is known of the translator of the poem, Mabel Dearmer, but she could have been a friend of the Vaughan-Williams. The music evokes the stillness and calm of a hot summer's day, and the cri de coeur for a meaning in life.

Where Corals Lie , from Sea Pictures by Edward Elgar (1857-1934), poem by Dr Richard Garnett. This song cycle was first performed by the great contralto, Dame Clara Butt, with Elgar conducting, at a Norwich Festival concert on 5th October 1899. The cycle has been criticised for having no coherence, but remains one of the most popular of Elgar's works. It has been described as the 'dark face of self-discovery.' Elgar's wife, Alice, had written the second of the songs, In Haven , which he set and published two years before completing all five. Many commentators propose that Elgar perceived the sea as the 'hand of God', dispassionate, neither friend nor foe. The different songs suggest the many moods of the sea and are probably better heard with an orchestral accompaniment. What was true was that writing song music was 'a nice little earner'. Elgar once said, "it is better to set the best second-rate poetry to music, for the most immortal verse is music already." It was the first work that he had published by Boosey Ltd, rather than Novello. Dr Richard Garnett, who was a keeper of printed books at the British Museum, may have been a friend of the Elgars.

When Old Men Wish to be Married , from The Barber of Seville by Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), libretto by Cesare Sterbini, based on the play of the same name by Beaumarchais. The opera was first performed in Rome in 1816, to a mixed reception. The play was written by Beaumarchais in 1775, the first of a trilogy on the relationships between Figaro, the barber, and Count Almaviva. It's a light-hearted piece in which Figaro aids the Count in his wooing of Rosina, the high-spirited ward of Dr Bartolo, who Bartolo wants to marry himself. Rosina has fixed her eyes on the young, handsome count and is instrumental in the deception of Bartolo. Berta, the maidservant, sees all the comings and goings and, frustrated, sings this piece as a witty commentary on the goings-on in the household. As with our first heroine, she's heard about love and romance, but never experienced it.

Porgi Amor , from The Marriage of Figaro by W A Mozart, libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte based on the play of the same name by Beaumarchais. The play was written in 1778 but banned in Vienna because it introduced ideas of equality in a continent heading for revolution. Such lines as these were deemed by aristocracy to be dangerous: "Nobility, fortune, rank, places; all these things create such pride! What have you done to deserve these goods? You have had the fortune of birth, and nothing more..." Mozart wrote the opera in 1786. The play was the second in the trilogy by Beaumarchais about Figaro and the Count Almaviva. Some years following the action in the Barber of Seville, the Count has married Rosina, but become bored with her. Figaro has become his valet, and is about to wed the Countess' chambermaid, Susanna. Except that the Count wishes to repeal the law denying his droit de seigneur and take Susanna to bed himself. "He's just like all modern husbands are! On principle unfaithful, by nature fickle, and only jealous out of pride" is how the Countess describes her husband to Susanna. Susanna plans to expose the Count and persuades the Countess to pose as her, while Susanna pretends to be the Countess. At the beginning of Act 2, the Countess prays to Cupid, the god of love, who some say is embodied as the page Cherubino, to restore her love or let her die: Porgi Amor . In these times, could one perhaps sense a whiff of self-pity in the occasion? Mozart has sympathy with her in his music. After all, what other destiny could she have as a noblewoman?

When I am laid in Earth , from Dido and Aeneas , by Henry Purcell, libretto by Nahum Tate. Dido and Aeneas was the first true English opera. The action takes place entirely in song and dance. It was first performed "at Mr Josias Priest's Boarding School at Chelsey by young gentlewomen" in the Spring of 1689. The story tells of the passion between Dido, Queen of Carthage, and Aeneas, a Trojan prince shipwrecked on the north coast of Africa, en route to his destiny of founding Rome. In Purcell's version, a sorceress and her companions envious of Dido, engineer the dispatch of Hermes from the gods' home in Olympia to remind Aeneas to leave Dido and pursue his goal. Dido, who has, from the beginning of the opera, had premonitions of her fate, dies finally of a broken heart. Some say suicide. The combination of love and death was an Elizabethan tradition. One did not go without the other. In view of the age and sex of the original performers, the erotic aspects of the story are under-emphasised. Aeneas does not appear much and seems to be a bit of a wimp. Which makes you wonder why Dido fell for him in the first place.

Two songs by George (1898 - 1937) and Ira (1896-1983) Gershwin. George wrote the music and Ira wrote the lyrics. George Gershwin was equally at home in the concert hall and on Broadway. The brothers wrote over two dozen scores for Broadway shows, encompassing a multitude of songs. Both these songs have the theme of an, as yet, unrealised dream. Nice Work if You Can Get It was first performed by Fred Astaire in A Damsel in Distress in 1932. The Man I Love was premiered in 1924 by Adele Astaire in Lady Be Good.

Senza Mamma , from Suor Angelica by Giacomo Puccini (1858 - 1924), libretto by Giovacchino Forzano and first performed at the Met in New York on 14th December 1918. Suor Angelica is the second of a triptych of one-act operas, with an all female cast. It is said that the theme of the triptych is Purgatory, Heaven and Hell, with Suor Angelica representing the tortuous path to Heaven. Sister Angelica was banished to a convent by her aristocratic family because she had an illegitimate baby. Seven years later, her cold and austere aunt arrives at the convent to instruct Angelica to sign away her rights to the family fortune. In passing, she mentions that the child had died two years previously. This aria is Sister Angelica's lament for her dead child, in which she resolves to join her baby in heaven. She takes poison but realising that she has committed a mortal sin, calls on the Virgin Mary for deliverance. As the other sisters look on, the Madonna appears with a small child, bathed in radiant light, and together they lead Angelica to Paradise . Puccini had an elder sister, Romelde, who also became a nun in a secluded order. Since she could not leave the cloisters, he went to the convent and played and sang the opera for the nuns. Subsequently, all the nun knelt and prayed for the soul of the nun who committed suicide. We continue our theme of love and death with this piece, but I have chosen it more particularly because I think it is exquisite music. I first heard it interwoven into the backing of an Inspector Morse episode about the death of a child, and it took me several years to find out what it was.

Stride Le Vampa , from Il Trovatore by Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901), libretto by Salvatore Cammarano and first performed at the Teatro Apollo, Rome, on 19th January 1853. Stride Le Vampa is the tale of how the old Count de Luna sent an old woman to the stake condemned as a witch, surrounded by a jeering, leering crowd. It is the old woman's gypsy daughter, Azucena, who tells the tale as if it is etched on her memory. Her revenge on this deed started when she stole the baby brother of the younger Count di Luna. Everyone assumes that the bones of the baby found in the ashes were that of the Count's brother, but in fact, Azucena thew her own baby into the flames and reared the Count's brother, Manrico, as her own. In the final act, the young Count di Luna, not knowing Manrico's true identity, has him beheaded because of his jealousy over their rivalry for Leonora. Azucena finally reveals the truth, leaving the Count to reflect on the consequences of his pre-emptory actions. If this tale has a moral, perhaps it is that obsessive love is converted only too easily to an instrument of hate.