[Score] Richard Rodney Bennett - Little Suite (1965) for small orchestra

adapted from songs from the books "The Aviary" and "The Insect World"
Score: https://www.universaledition.com/medi...
Audio:    • Album - The British Light Music Collection 1  
Royal Ballet Sinfonia
Gavin Sutherland, conductor

0:00 I. The Birds Lament
2:50 II. The Widow Bird
4:15 III. The Ladybird
6:28 IV. Glow-worms
8:45 V. The Lark

The Birds' Lament
words by John Clare

1. Oh, says the linnet, if I sing,
My love forsook me in the spring,
And nevermore will I be seen
without my satin gown of green.

2. Oh, says the pretty feathered jay,
Now my love is gone away
And for the memory of my dear
A feather of each sort I'll wear.

3. Oh, says the rook and eke the crow,
The reason why in black we go
Because our love has us forsook
So pity us poor crow and rook.

4. Oh, says the pretty speckled thrush
that changes its note from bush to bush,
My love has left me here alone,
I fear she never will return.

The Widow Bird
words by P. B. Shelley

A widow bird sate mourning for her love
Upon a leafy bough;
The frozen wind crept on above,
The freezing wind below.

There was no leaf upon the forest bare,
No flow'r upon the ground.
And little motion in the air
Except the millwheel's sound.

Clock-a-clay
words by John Clare

1. In the cowslip pips I lie
Hidden from the buzzing fly,
While green grass beneath me lies,
Pearled with dew like fishes' eyes,
Here I lie a Clock-a-clay,
Waiting for the time of day

2. While grassy forest quakes surprise
And the wild wind sobs and sighs,
My home rocks as like to fall,
On its pillar green and tall,
While the patt'ring rain drives by,
Clock-a-clay keeps warm and dry.

3. Day by day and night by night,
All the week I hide from sight,
In the cowslip pips I lie,
in rain and dew still warm and dry,
Day and night and night and day,
Red, black spotted Clock-a-clay

4. My home shakes in wind and showers
Pale green pillar topped with flowers
Bending at the wild winds breath,
Till I touch the grass beneath,
Here I live, lone Clock-a-clay,
Watching for the time of day.

Glow-worms
words by Andrew Marvell

Ye living lamps, by whose dear light
the nightingale does sit so late,
And studying all the summer night
her matchless song does meditate:

Ye country comets, that portend
No war nor princes funeral,
Shining unto no higher end
than to presage the grass's fall:

Ye glow-worms, whose officious flame
to wand'ring mowers shows the way,
that in the night have lost their aim
and after foolish fires do stray.

Your courteous lights in vain you waste,
Since Juliana here is come,
For she my mind hath so displaced
that I shall never find my home.

The Lark
words by S. T. Coleridge

Do you ask what the birds say?
The sparrow, the dove,
The linnet and thrush say,
'I love and I love.'

In the winter they're silent,
the wind is so strong;
What it says I don't know,
but it sings a loud song.

But green leaves, and blossoms,
and sunny warm weather,
And singing and loving
all come back together.

But the lark is so brimful
of gladness and love,
The green fields below him
the blue sky above.

That he sings and he sings
and forever sings he,
'I love my Love
and my Love loves me.'