Songs for Julia: A Song Cycle for Baritone and Piano

So here is the final cycle I've been talking about, containing all 9 songs. I really love it and I hope you do too.

Songs for Julia Texts
-Robert Herrick

CHERRY-RIPE.
CHERRY-RIPE, ripe, ripe, I cry,
Full and fair ones ; come and buy.
If so be you ask me where
They do grow, I answer : There,
Where my Julia's lips do smile ;
There's the land, or cherry-isle,
Whose plantations fully show
All the year where cherries grow.


UPON JULIA'S VOICE.
So smooth, so sweet, so silv'ry is thy voice
As, could they hear, the damn'd would make no noise,
But listen to thee, walking in thy chamber,
Melting melodious words to lutes of amber.


AGAIN.
WHEN I thy singing next shall hear,
I'll wish I might turn all to ear,
To drink in notes and numbers such
As blessed souls can't hear too much ;
Then melted down, there let me lie
Entranc'd and lost confusedly,
And by thy music stricken mute,
Die and be turn'd into a lute.

UPON HER BLUSH.
WHEN Julia blushes she does show
Cheeks like to roses when they blow.

UPON JULIA'S HAIR FILLED WITH DEW.
DEW sat on Julia's hair
And spangled too,
Like leaves that laden are
With trembling dew :
Or glitter'd to my sight,
As when the beams
Have their reflected light
Danc'd by the streams.

TO DAISIES, NOT TO SHUT SO SOON.
SHUT not so soon; the dull-eyed night
Has not as yet begun
To make a seizure on the light,
Or to seal up the sun.

No marigolds yet closed are;
No shadows great appear;
Nor doth the early shepherds' star
Shine like a spangle here.

Stay but till my Julia close
Her life-begetting eye,
And let the whole world then dispose
Itself to live or die.

ON JULIA'S BREATH.
BREATHE, Julia, breathe, and I'll protest,
Nay more, I'll deeply swear,
That all the spices of the east
Are circumfused there.

UPON HER WEEPING.
SHE wept upon her cheeks, and weeping so,
She seem'd to quench love's fire that there did glow.


THE DREAM. (II)
BY dream I saw one of the three
Sisters of fate appear to me ;
Close to my bedside she did stand,
Showing me there a firebrand ;
She told me too, as that did spend,
So drew my life unto an end.
Three quarters were consum'd of it ;
Only remained a little bit,
Which will be burnt up by-and-by ;
Then, Julia, weep, for I must die.

I know its hard to listen to vocal music through that darn computer, but please try to enjoy. There is talk of a live performance...well see what happens.

Comments always welcome!

Audio - Songs for Julia Full Cycle - Putfile.com

It's definitely vocal, and seems inspired in part by baroque music. You have these very long runs that I could not sing in one breath (granted, I'm still getting over horrible sinusitis, so I might not be accurate) - so you might want to mark in where the singer should breathe.

Harmonically it's very nice. I'm assuming you're going to want a fair amount of rubato when those huge rolled chords hit, because it's going to take a bit longer for a live pianist to play (I'm sure you know that).

Please separate the hands in that section where you have the cluster-chords in the treble line, just for ease of reading.

When will you have a live performance?

Thank you for your comments. I do need to add in those breath marks (damn! ) And I am aware of the rubato.

I have no idea when a live performance will happen, its up in the air right now. If I had to guess I would have to guess sometime starting in Aug in the next school year. I could get one at Tanglewood, who knows?

Thanks again.

So... this is a very interesting song cycle, I'm a bit of a Robert Herrick fan actually, and I think you capture the slightly-depressive-but-jovial feel in his short, rather to-the-point poetry. I think the last song is by far the most successful of the lot (closely followed by 'Upon Julia's hair Filled with Dew') which in its pensive harmony and the generous amount of space you give to the words reminded me alot of the more morose bits of Butterworth songs (near the end of Bredon Hill, maybe). The 6/8 of 'Julia's Hair' fit the words perfectly, and I think harmonically and melodically this was also very strong. The long phrases in 'Julia's Breath' should be broken up, and it would probably be advisable to repeat the words as many times as you break them up rather than have a breath in the middle of the word Purcell-style; otherwise though, I thought this was a very creative setting and I liked your idea for it. I thought the harmony possibly went a bit wayward in 'To Daisies', especially in the accompaniment figure from b.182: I can see what you're getting at here but I think it could do with being slightly tidied up.

Generally, I thought you created a very cohesive yet moving mood that showed a strong progression towards the end, especially highlighted by the atmospheric return of IV at VIII. The immense piano chords - you could consider taming these a little. It's certainly possible to do that but I don't know without trying whether it might obstruct the flow of the performance, on account of taking so long: bar 271 requires changing hands three times, for instance, which is a bit of a pain if not much else. There were some really atmospheric bits of word setting (eg. the triplets at 39), and while I thought while listening through that there were occasionally some points where the word-setting didn't quite seem natural, I just sang through it and couldn't find them really, so it was probably just the recording, lol. So, wow. Well done.

Umm I LOVE BUTTERWORTH!!! Im working on The Shropshire Lad right now haha.
Im glad you enjoyed it and I will take some things into account.
Thank you.

Haha yeah me too, I did the six from A Shropshire Lad and Bredon Hill for my A-level recital. It's the most fantastic song cycle ever!!! Especially (obviously) Is My Team Ploughing, which is also the best song ever, as far as I'm concerned. Wow, I'm glad to have met another Butterworth lover! Anyway, sorry, this was meant to be about your piece: I went through 'Julia's Hair' again, and decided it was really, really good - lovely sensitive, pertinent and imaginitive setting. Oh, and, the other thing I was going to say: it feels a bit weird in the treble clef when it goes down to a Bb and not really that high. Bass might be better? But anyway, yeah.

I was thinking of doing a bass clef version so it really is baritone. Well see.
Here is a video of me singing When I was one-and-twenty. YouTube - Butterworth: When I was One-and-Twenty
This is the only video of a Butterworth song!!

Wow, that's really good. You've got a great voice, really well sung.

Thank you so much.

Anyone else want to comment on the piece? haha.

pardon my french but scott.........this is fucking INCREDIBLE...it's all wonderful and i have no bad things to say ...good job nig