DANIEL BASFORD - COMPOSER & ARRANGER

Four Pastoral Songs

2014. Duration 9' approx.

 

 

 

 

Scoring

Soprano

Baroque Oboe/Oboe*

 

*The piece can be performed either at Baroque pitch on a Baroque oboe (the singer's part will also sound at Baroque pitch) or with both parts sounding at written pitch using a modern oboe to accompany the singer.

 

Programme Note

These songs bring together four disparate texts.

 

1. Birds Singing (Robert Bloomfield)

A dreamy opening movement; the oboe's line has a common fragment of melody which appears each time the singer describes a short list of birds. 

 

2. Passions (Walter Raleigh)

An initially more strident conversation between the instrument and voice, on the varying degrees of passion people can show, leads to a slower and subdued ending.

 

3. Summer Friends (George Herbert)

A short movement with much entwining of melodic lines

 

4. Come, My Love's Delight (Thomas Campion)

The final movement is a canon, the voice copying the oboe's line as the poet wishes his love to be beside him.