Words and Music - The Glory of the Garden

‘The Glory of the Garden’ Gardens encapsulate the fundamentals of human existence: birth, reproduction death. The eternal process of renewal we see in a garden offers a wealth of material to poets and composers alike. This Words and Music traces some of the key ways that poets and musicians have been inspired by gardens, opening with Genesis Chapter two alongside the triumphal first chords of Haydn’s oratorio The Creation. Milton’s opulent portrayal of Eden in Paradise Lost offers a luxuriant vision of man’s first garden, but beneath the glittering vistas lies the threat of man’s impending fall. Joni Mitchell’s call to ‘get ourselves back to the garden’ in Woodstock signals a desire to return to our garden state which characterised the mood of her times, and echoes on into the present. The metaphysics in their typically cerebral way, saw the garden as an ideal metaphysical puzzle, full of rich conceits to aid their exploration of man’s relationship with God. George Herbert in ‘The Flower’ takes the microcosmic world of the flower and uses it to interrogate man’s endless striving upwards to god, and the miracle of god’s ability to strike down and raise up. But gardens have a dark side – they are the scene of death and mysterious, shadowy renewal as well as a place of seduction and subversion. The extract we hear from the Song of Solomon revels in the sensual, lushness of the garden, while Tennyson’s desperate plea for Maud to ‘come into the garden’ reveals an obsessive sexual pull which goes beyond the sedate Victorian fascination with posies and gardens. In Robert Lowell’s bleak poem The Public Garden we see the desolation of a failed relationship reflected in the autumnal dryness of a deserted public space, mirrored by Messiaen’s ghostly Jardin du sommeil d’amour from the Turangalila Symphony. Georgia Mann (producer) Readers: Anton Lesser (AL) & Frances Barber (FB) Haydn: The Creation, Introduction English Baroque Soloists / Gardiner ARCHIV 449217-2 King James Bible, Genesis 2: 8 – 10 AL John Milton: ‘Paradise Lost’ (extract) FB Joni Mitchell: Woodstock REPRISE 9362463262 The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (FHB) Chapter 1, ‘The Robin Who Showed the Way’ FB Turina: Marche from Jardin de ninos, Op. 63 Jordi Maso, piano NAXOS 8.570026 Delius: In a Summer Garden Halle / Handley EMI 724357531528 W.H Auden: Their Lonely Betters AL Debussy: Jardins sous la pluie Alexis Weissenberg (piano) DG 415510-2 Ch’u Ch’uang: Evening in the Garden, Clear after Rain Translator, Kenneth Rexroth FB Ketelby: In a Chinese Temple Garden London Promenade Orchestra / Faris PHILIPS 400011-2 Lockman/Boyce, arr Franklin: The Pleasures of Vauxhall Spring Gardens Catherine Bott, soprano David Owen Norris, piano HYPERION CDA67457 Extract: A letter from Alexander Pope to Lord Edward Blount in 1719 AL The Secret Garden by FHB, Chapter 2 ‘The Key of the Garden’ FB Nyman: The garden is becoming a robe room, from The Draughtsman’s Contract Michael Nyman Band VENTURE DVEBN55 Antoine Brumel: Sicut Lilium The Orlando Consort HARMONIA MUNDI HMU907398 Extract from The Song of Solomon (verses 2:1 – 5; 4:12 – 5; 1; 7:11 – 13), FB S. Levi arr. E. Bouskela: El Ginat Egoz Ensemble Kol Aviv ARION 2348735 Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Maud (extract) AL De Falla: En el Generalife from Nights in the Gardens of Spain Philadelphia Orchestra / Ormandy CBS MPK46449 Fats Waller: Honeysuckle Rose From: Ain’t Misbehaving ASV CDAJA5174 The Secret Garden by FHB, Chapter 9 ‘The Strangest House Any One Ever Lived In’ FB Faure: La Roses d’Ispahan Felicity Lott, soprano Graham Johnson, piano HYPERION CDA66937 Juan Vasquez: En la Fuente del Rosel Orlando Consort HARMONIA MUNDI HMU907938 Tallis: O Sacrum Convivum Rose Consort of Viols DEUX-ELLESDXL1129 George Herbert: The Flower AL The Secret Garden, by FHB Chapter 13, ‘I Am Colin’ FB Haydn: Sonata No. 60 in C major, Hob 16/50 Ronald Brautigam, fortepiano BIS-CD-994 Byron: To a Lady Who Presented To The Author a Lock of Hair Braided With His Own, And Appointed At a Night In December To Meet Him In The Garden (From Hours of Idleness - 1807) Grainger: Counrty Gardens RNCM Wind Orchestra / Reynish CHANDOS CHAN9549 Delius: Walk to the Paradise Garden Halle Orchestra / Handley EMI 724357531528 The Secret Garden, by FHB Chapter 20 ‘I Shall Live Forever’ FB The Public Garden by Robert Lowell Messiaen: Jardin du sommeil d’amour Berlin Philharmonic / Nagano TELDEC 573820432 Strauss: September Karita Mattila, soprano Berlin Philharmonic / Abbado DG 445182-2 The Glory of the Garden by Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936) Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis LPO / Boult EMI CDC7472132