"Ca' the yowes to the knowes" | |
---|---|
![]() Score for "Ca' the Yowes" from the Scots Musical Museum, Volume III (1790) | |
Song | |
Language | Scots |
Written | 1794 |
Lyricist(s) | Isabel Pagan/Robert Burns |
"Ca' the yowes to the knowes" ("Drive the ewes to the hills") is a Scottish folk song collected by Robert Burns from 1794. Although sometimes attributed to Burns himself, the seven-stanza original poem is thought to be the work of Ayrshire poet Isabel Pagan, a contemporary of Burns. The poem was partially revised by Burns, and he added an eighth stanza. Burns later re-wrote the poem on a solitary stroll in the country, and this second version consists of six stanzas. [1] [2] [3] It is possible that Burns was not aware that Pagan was the original author, only noting that "this song is in the true Scottish taste, yet I do not know that either air or words were ever in print before." [4]
The original text is a pastoral love poem spoken from the point of view of a shepherdess herding her ewes ("yowes"), who has a romantic meeting with a shepherd lad. Burns's revised version is less explicit about the identity of the narrator, but follows a similar theme of love amid the beauty of nature. Both versions include the refrain, "Ca' the yowes to the knowes".
Original version (Pagan, ed. Burns) | English Translation | Second version (Burns) | English Translation |
---|---|---|---|
Refrain: Ca' the yowe s to the knowes, | Refrain: | Refrain: | Refrain: |
As I gaed down the water-side, | As I went down the water-side | Hark the mavis' e'ening sang, | Hark, the song-thrush's evening song, |
Will ye gang down the water-side, | Will you go down to the water-side, | We'll gae down by Clouden side, | We'll go down by the side of Cluden Water [Note 1] |
Ye sall get gowns and ribbons meet, | You shall get suitable gowns and ribbons, | Yonder Clouden's silent towers [Note 2] | Yonder Cluden's silent towers, |
If ye'll but stand to what ye've said, | If you will but stand to what you have said, | Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear, | Ghost nor hobgoblin shall you fear - |
While waters wimple to the sea, | While waters flow to the sea, | Fair and lovely as thou art, | Fair and lovely as you are, |
The song was made widely known in recordings by Kathleen Ferrier of an arrangement by Maurice Jacobson, composer, accompanist and chairman of the music publisher Curwen. These included in recitals given by Ferrier and Bruno Walter at the Edinburgh Festival of 1952.
In 1922, the English composer and scholar of folk music Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote a choral setting of "Ca' the yowes" for tenor solo and SATB chorus. Benjamin Britten also wrote an arrangement of the song in 1951 for solo voice and piano. [6] [7] [8] This version was later covered by artists like Shirley Collins and House and Land. [9]
Sir Granville Ransome Bantock was a British composer of classical music.
"Auld Lang Syne" is a popular song, particularly in the English-speaking world. Traditionally, it is sung to bid farewell to the old year at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve/Hogmanay. By extension, it is also often heard at funerals, graduations, and as a farewell or ending to other occasions; for instance, many branches of the Scouting movement use it to close jamborees and other functions.
Saint Cecilia, also spelled Cecelia, was a Roman virgin martyr and is venerated in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and some Lutheran churches, such as the Church of Sweden. She became the patroness of music and musicians, it being written that, as the musicians played at her wedding, Cecilia "sang in her heart to the Lord". Musical compositions are dedicated to her, and her feast, on 22 November, is the occasion of concerts and musical festivals. She is also known as Cecilia of Rome.
"Farewell to Nova Scotia" is a popular folk song from Nova Scotia, Canada. It was adapted from the Scottish lament "The Soldier's Adieu" written by Robert Tannahill. It was written sometime before or during World War I and popularized in 1964 when Catherine McKinnon used it as the theme song for the Halifax-based CBC TV program, Singalong Jubilee.
Isabel Pagan, also known as "Tibbie", was a Scottish poet of the Romantic Era.
The Spring Symphony is a choral symphony by Benjamin Britten, his Opus 44. It is dedicated to Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It was premiered in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, on Thursday 14 July 1949 as part of the Holland Festival, when the composer was 35. At the premiere the tenor soloist was Peter Pears, the soprano Jo Vincent and the contralto Kathleen Ferrier. The conductor was Eduard van Beinum. A recording of the performance survives and was first issued by Decca in August 1994.
The Corpus Christi Carol or Falcon Carol is a Middle or Early Modern English hymn, first written down by an apprentice grocer named Richard Hill between 1504 and 1536. The original writer of the carol remains anonymous. The earliest surviving record of the piece preserves only the lyrics and is untitled. It has survived in altered form in the folk tradition as the Christmas carol "Down In Yon Forest". The structure of the carol is six stanzas, each with rhyming couplets. The tense changes in the fourth stanza from past to present continuous.
Rejoice in the Lamb is a cantata for four soloists, SATB choir and organ composed by Benjamin Britten in 1943 and uses text from the poem Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart (1722–1771). The poem, written while Smart was in an asylum, depicts idiosyncratic praise and worship of God by different things including animals, letters of the alphabet and musical instruments. Britten was introduced to the poem by W. H. Auden whilst visiting the United States, selecting 48 lines of the poem to set to music with the assistance of Edward Sackville-West. The cantata was commissioned by the Reverend Walter Hussey for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the consecration of St Matthew's Church, Northampton. Critics praised the work for its uniqueness and creative handling of the text. Rejoice in the Lamb has been arranged for chorus, solos and orchestral accompaniment, and for SSAA choir and organ.
Patrick Arthur Sheldon Hadley was a British composer.
Hodie is a cantata by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Composed between 1953 and 1954, it is the composer's last major choral-orchestral composition, and was premiered under his baton at Worcester Cathedral, as part of the Three Choirs Festival, on 8 September 1954. The piece is dedicated to Herbert Howells. The cantata, in 16 movements, is scored for chorus, boys' choir, organ and orchestra, and features tenor, baritone, and soprano soloists.
"The Shepherd" is a poem from William Blake's Songs of Innocence (1789). This collection of songs was published individually four times before it was combined with the Songs of Experience for 12 editions which created the joint collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794). Blake produced all of the illuminated printings himself beginning in 1789. Each publication of the songs has the plates in a different order, and sixteen other plates were published posthumously.
A choral symphony is a musical composition for orchestra, choir, and sometimes solo vocalists that, in its internal workings and overall musical architecture, adheres broadly to symphonic musical form. The term "choral symphony" in this context was coined by Hector Berlioz when he described his Roméo et Juliette as such in his five-paragraph introduction to that work. The direct antecedent for the choral symphony is Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Beethoven's Ninth incorporates part of the Ode an die Freude, a poem by Friedrich Schiller, with text sung by soloists and chorus in the last movement. It is the first example of a major composer's use of the human voice on the same level as instruments in a symphony.
The Choral Symphony is a work by Gustav Holst for soprano soloist, chorus, and orchestra in a setting of verses by John Keats. Written in 1923–24, it was premiered in Leeds Town Hall on October 7, 1925, conducted by Albert Coates with Dorothy Silk as soloist. The same performers gave the work's second performance three weeks later in Queen's Hall, London. The work is sometimes known as the First Choral Symphony, although a planned 'second Choral Symphony' never progressed beyond some uncompleted sketches.
"Comin' Thro' the Rye" is a poem written in 1782 by Robert Burns (1759–1796). The words are put to the melody of the Scottish Minstrel "Common' Frae The Town". This is a variant of the tune to which "Auld Lang Syne" is usually sung—the melodic shape is almost identical, the difference lying in the tempo and rhythm.
"The truth sent from above" is an English folk carol of unknown authorship usually performed at Christmas. Collected in the early part of the 20th century by English folk song collectors in Shropshire and Herefordshire, a number of variations on the tune exist, but the text remains broadly similar. The first line of the carol is "This is the truth sent from above".
Roderick Gregory Coleman Williams OBE is a British baritone and composer.
"Music, When Soft Voices Die" is a major poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, written in 1821 and first published in Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1824 in London by John and Henry L. Hunt with a preface by Mary Shelley. The poem is one of the most anthologised, influential, and well-known of Shelley's works.
Charles Clement Fussell is an American composer and conductor of contemporary classical music. He has composed six symphonies and three operas. His symphony Wilde for solo baritone and orchestra, based on the life of Oscar Wilde and premiered by the Newton Symphony Orchestra and the baritone Sanford Sylvan in 1990, was a finalist for the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Music. He received a citation and award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1992.
Five Tudor Portraits (1935), by Ralph Vaughan Williams, is a work scored for contralto, baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra. It sets several poems, or extracts from poems, by the 15th/16th-century poet John Skelton, portraying five characters with a mixture of satire, compassion, acerbity and earthy humour. Though acclaimed by critics, it has not been so frequently performed as some of Vaughan Williams' other works. In its complete form it lasts about 42 minutes, though the composer also sanctioned the performance of individual movements separately.
Ca' the yowes.