Before and After
I have recently set two poems by Isaac Rosenberg, the artist, poet and reluctant soldier who was killed in WWI. The first is the idealistic ‘My Days’, written before the war, and the second is extracts from his long and savage ‘Dead Man’s Dump’ written in 1917 and bitter with experience. The settings are for baritone and piano and join my recent settings of three poems by Edward Thomas (‘Strange Bridge’), also for baritone and piano.
Night Music
On October 14th, Ellen Blackshaw (violin) and Yoko Ono (piano) performed my ‘Nocturne’ and ‘Cortège?’ at All Saints church, Hove. Both pieces are based on poems by the Spanish surrealist poet Federico García Lorca. The ‘Nocturne’ was written especially for this concert to contrast with the Nocturne and Cortège by Lili Boulanger.
Americana
Originally written for five flutes but now taking advantage of the wider spectrum offered by strings, these three miniatures for string quintet are in a nostalgically American mood: ‘Late Nights’, ‘Big Skies’ and ‘Train hopping’.
Mime in Time
Saturday 2nd October 2.30 pm Pianist Karen Kingsley includied my Marcel Morceaux in her New Music Brighton concert at the Friends’ Meeting house in Brighton. Marcel Morceaux are three pieces written in memory of the great mime artist Marcel Marceaux. Karen Kingsley also played works by Benjamin Britten and New Music Brighton composers.
Strange Bridge
Edward Thomas’s poem ‘The Bridge’ begins ‘I have come a long way today: On a strange bridge alone …’. Some years ago I set three of his poems for voice with flute, viola and harp (‘The Unknown Bird’). I have now added a second cycle of three songs, this time with piano: ‘The Bridge’, ‘Will you Come?’ and ‘For These’.
‘For These’ was written in 1915 in the same month he enlisted. He was killed by a shell, aged 39, at Arras in 1917.
John Hawkins studied composition with Malcolm Williamson and Elisabeth Lutyens. He has written a wide range of chamber, vocal, choral and orchestral pieces, which have been performed worldwide.