Song-Cycles

 

A COLLECTION OF SONGS (1963)

A COLLECTION OF SONGS

Words by John Betjeman, music by Donald Swann.

A group of four Betjeman settings for baritone - approved by the author. Appropriately wistful, nostalgic and cheeky including a classic version of 'Miss Joan Hunter Dunn' ('A Subaltern's Love Song').

 

Contents:
The Licorice Fields at Pontefract, Margate 1949, Senex, A Subaltern's Love Song.

 
RECORDINGS: EP
PUBLICATIONS: MUSIC

 

THE ROAD GOES EVER ON (1967)

THE ROAD GOES EVER ON
UK 1st edition. George Allen & Unwin, London 1967 (top left).
US paperback edition: Ballantine Books, New York 1969 (top right).
German edition. Olaf Hille Verlag, Germany. 1993 (middle left).
'Bilbo's Last Song'. Albert House Press 1992 (middle right).
UK 3rd edition. Harper Collins, London 2002 (bottom).
Poems by J.R.R.Tolkien, music by Donald Swann.

A cycle of seven songs selected from THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, with Elvish calligraphy by Tolkien himself, written during the last two years of the AT THE DROP OF ANOTHER HAT tour. Donald often used 'I Sit beside the Fire' in the show and it can be heard on the Broadway video. The original cycle can be heard on commercial cassette with Donald accompanying Covent Garden baritone William Elvin. To the second edition Donald added 'Bilbo's Last Song' which is also available as a separate copy.

An eighth Tolkein setting, 'Lúthien Tinúviel', can be found in THE SONGS OF DONALD SWANN: VOLUME 1 and has now been added to the third edition published by Harper Collins in 2002, which includes a free CD of the Elvin recording as well as bonus tracks of 'Bilbo's Last Song' and 'Lúthien Tinúviel'

Harper Collins ISBN 0-00-713655-2 price £20.
Can be ordered from UK bookstores and music stores.
US customers order through Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk

Link: www.tolkien.co.uk

Contents:
The Road Goes Ever On, Upon the Hearth the Fire is Red, In the Willow-meads of Tsarinan, in Western Lands, Namárďe. I Sit beside the Fire, Errantry, Bilbo's Last Song (2nd edition onwards), Lúthien Tinúviel (3rd edition).

 

RECORDINGS: CASSETTES
RECORDINGS: VIDEO
PUBLICATIONS: MUSIC
   

 

THE POETIC IMAGE (1991)

THE POETIC IMAGE
A VICTORIAN SONG CYCLE. Eleven settings by Donald Swann with Images by Alison Smith.

Joseph Horovitz in the Royal College of Music Journal says "A model of text-music-graphic book production".

Contents:
There rolls the deep, Be near me, Oh yet we trust, The wish, - IN MEMORIAM Alfred Tennyson.
Song, A Better Resurrection - Christina Rosetti
The Harlot's House, The Ballad of Reading Gaol - Oscar Wilde
An Invite to Eternity - John Clare
Thoughts of Phena, Before Life and After - Thomas Hardy

 
PUBLICATIONS: MUSIC

 

LAST SONGS (2001)

Settings of William Blake, Edna St Vincent Millay and Emily Dickinson.

Some of Donald's final and most beautiful compositions.

Contents:
SIX SONGS TO POEMS BY WILLIAM BLAKE: The Garden of Love, Ah! Sun-Flower, The Sick Rose, The Angel, The Proverb.
FIVE COLOURISATIONS OF EMILY DICKINSON: Farewell, I Died for Beauty, I Felt a Funeral in my Brain, Dying, I Had No Time to Hate.
TWO SONNETS BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY: And Must I Then, Indeed, Pain, Live with You, Thou Famished Grave

 
For publication announcements check the NEWS page.