As part of our online Lieder Concert on Thursday the 14th of May, soprano April Fredrick and pianist Michael Karcher-Young will give a performance of Songs of Loss and Regret, a powerful song cycle by this year’s Visiting Composer, Philip Sawyers, recorded in their homes during lockdown.

Below, the composer talks about the genesis and the structure of this very moving work.

(Excerpts from the orchestral version of Songs of Loss and Regret, sung by 2020 Festival Artist, April Fredrick)

Songs of Loss and Regret

-Philip Sawyers

When Adrian Farmer commissioned these songs he suggested they mark, in some way, the centenary of the outbreak of World War 1. They were composed originally for soprano and piano (although they could also be sung by a mezzo soprano) and were then orchestrated for string orchestra on the suggestion of Kenneth Woods. I found that many of the relevant poems referred to the brutal physical aspects of war and I would be drawn into ‘word painting’.

The overwhelming sense of pity, loss, waste and regret led me to assemble a collection of verses that was more ‘feeling’ than ‘action’. My dark side had already committed to memory over the years many of the verses used here. The first 3 songs are settings of A E Housman, from A Shropshire Lad and More Poems. Somehow the harmony and melodic shapes give these an English feel and, like the Ralph Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, I have unconsciously used modal cadences. In fact each song cadences in a similar manner and with just a bare 5^th in the final chord.

The mostly lively fourth song sets Tennyson’s ‘Break, Break, Break’, whose depiction of waves and the ocean lead, like Housman, to similar darker sentiments. Number five uses Wilfred Owen‘s ‘Futility’, memorably set by Britten in his ‘War Requiem’. The scoring is for violas, cellos, and pizzicato double basses, with only a brief appearance of the violins.

Number six begins in a martial, quite vigorous way with forte dotted rhythms and sets two verses from Gray’s ‘Elegy’ reflecting exactly the same sentiments, but from the 18^th century. The seventh song, ‘The Wisdom of Solomon, is taken from the Apocrypha, probably the bleakest and most nihilistic of the set.

Finally number eight sets some verses from William Morris’s ‘The Earthly Paradise’, and almost becomes optimistic with some hints at the major mode towards the end. I hope the overall mood of the cycle will, as in any reflection of human suffering, be in some way cathartic.