For the first piece that I wrote for the Estonian National Men's Choir (RAM) in 2006 I set Silva Caledonia, one of 40 Sonnets from Scotland by the Scottish poet Edwin Morgan, and in 2008 I added two more. Edwin Morgan was a very fine poet indeed, a virtuoso in all the forms he used, and was the Scottish Poet Laureate (he died in 2010). All these sonnets follow faithfully the sonnet's defining 14 line format and are based in structure on the sonnets of Petrarch. I have set a number of Petrarch sonnets for my second and fourth books of madrigals and, just like Petrarch, Edwin Morgan breaks the 14 lines in two parts - an 'octave' and a 'sestet', contrasting the two parts rhythmically and with a rhyme scheme as 2x4 and 2x3. Memento and The Summons, the other two pieces in this collection, draw on the experience of having worked with the choir. All three pieces are dedicated to RAM and to its conductor, my friend Kaspars Putnins. Gavin Bryars, 2012. Contents: Silva Caledonia - Memento - The Summons. |
