Fretwork

Wild Winter, for soprano, tenor, tenor, bass & 5 viols.

Setting of various texts - Owen, Lorca, Crange, Petrarch & Trakl.

One of the challenges of writing Wild Winter was to find an appropriate text to commemorate the Siege of Lichfield. When I did not find a contemporary text that was suitably lyrical or dramatic, I had the idea that it might be interesting to select poems from many different times and countries. The poems I eventually chose were non-specific as to time and place, yet they all shared powerful emotions resulting from the inevitable losses and cruelties of any war. I also chose the poems because of certain words or phrases which I could use to overlap or link the setting of one poem with another - their merging cries of protest creating a sonic tapestry of shared experience.

To mention a few examples:

• War broke and the winter of the world… (Owen)
• No se oye otra cosa que el Uanto (weeping) … (Lorca)
• Do not weep maiden, for war is kind… (Crange)
• Le donne lagrimose…(women, weeping)…(Petrarch)
• Den wilden orgel des Winter sturms…/Wilde, Woelfe… (Trakl)
• Wild winter (Owen)

I made English translations of all these poems (inevitably rather free so the words would be comfortably set and singable with the given vocal line) - however to emphasise the universality of human response to the consequences of war, I would prefer they be sung in their original languages.

For me, thoughts of this distant war, the Siege of Lichfield, brings to mind my concern and outrage with the happenings in the world today, where we are witnessing once again “man’s inhumanity to man”.

Commissioned by the Lichfield Festival 1993.

First performed at the Lichfield Festival by Fretwork with Red Byrd (Suzie le Blanc, Ian Honeyman, John Potter & Richard Wistreich) 1993 (broadcast by BBC Radio 3)

Published by Novello Music (Music Sales Ltd.)