By Candlelight
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PDF score of By Candlelight for voice & piano
Poem by Geoffrey Bache Smith
This piece is also available for purchase via Raindrop New Music
To purchase a print copy, visit Classical Vocal Reprints
Contact Lisa to preview medium or high keys or to request a transposition
Length: 8 minutes
Vocal Range:
High Key: B2-A4 (tenor) or B3-A5 (soprano)
Medium Key: A2-G4 (baritone) or A3-G5 (mezzo)
Low Key: E2-D4 (bass) or E3-D5 (contralto)
Additional transpositions available by request.
Program NoteGeoffrey Bache Smith (1894-1916) was a close friend of J.R.R. Tolkien (one of my favorite authors). He was killed in World War I, and a collection of his poetry, titled Spring Harvest and edited by Tolkien, was published posthumously. It is from this collection that bass Ian Schipper selected the text for this song.
Smith’s poem evokes a fantastical mood and conveys an epic scope similar to Tolkien’s writings. The exciting, adventurous imagery set my imagination ablaze and inspired me to write sweeping, cinematic gestures in the piano and heroic lines for the singer. By Candlelight was written for bass Ian Schipper and pianist Elizabeth Caswell for Cascadia Composers‘ 2021 In Good Hands concert. |
PoemRime by Geoffrey Bache Smith
O scholar grey, with quiet eyes, Reading the charactered pages, bright With one tall candle’s flickering light, In a turret chamber under the skies; O scholar, learned in gramarye,* Have you seen the manifold things I see? Have you seen the forms of traced towers Whence clamorous voices challenge the hours: Gaunt tree-branches, pitchy black Against the long, wind-driven wrack Of scurrying, shuddering clouds, that race Ever across the pale moon’s face? Have you heard the tramp of hurrying feet. There beneath, in the shadowy street, Have you heard sharp cries, and seen the flame Of silvery steel, in a perilous game, A perilous game for men to play, Hid from the searching eyes of day? Have you heard the great awakening breath, Like trump that summons the saints from death, Of the wild, majestical wind, which blows Loud and splendid, that each man knows Far, O far away is the sea, Breaking, murmuring, stark and free? All these things I hear and see, I, a scholar of gramarye: All are writ in the ancient books Clear, exactly, and he that looks Finds the night and the changing sea, The years gone by, and the years to be: (He that searches, with tireless eyes In a turret-chamber under the skies) Passion and joy, and sorrow and laughter, Life and death, and the things thereafter. *gramarye: necromancy, magic, enchantment |