Ian Venables: Song Album: Baritone Voice: Vocal Album

Song cycle for medium voice and piano based upon the poetry of Ivor Gurney and Leonard Clark. A set of pieces very much in the English lyrical vocal writing tradition of Butterworth Ireland and of course Gurney.'The Pine Boughs Past Music is a song cycle baseed upon poetry associated with Gloucester and was commissioned to celebrate the eightieth anniversary of the Gloucester Music Society. Having purposefully sought inspiration from a wide array of Gloucester poets from Henley to Harvey I finally found inspiration in the poetry of Ivor Gurney whose work is so saturated with the Gloucestershire landscape. In his poetry Idiscovered the essential element I needed to bind the cycle together: the eternal backdrop of nature upon which the poet's thoughts are played out.It would have been quite easy to conclude the set with another poem by Ivor Gurney. However it was to Leonard Clark I turned. The title of his summative poem speaks for itself 'In Memoriam: Ivor Gurney': a haunting elegy that pays tribute to Gurney's everlasting memory.'                                 - Ian VenablesFirst performed on April 15th 2010 at St Mary-de-Lode Gloucester performed by Roderick Williams (Baritone) and Andrew West (Pianist).Commissioned by Christine Talbot-Cooper to celebrate the Gloucester Music Society's eightieth anniversary.