Spring Sonnets

Garth Bardsley’s two exquisite poems, Spring Sonnets, are set to music by Ben Parry, written for and dedicated to the BBC Singers. Whilst Bardsley’s poems might be conceived to be set to music, Parry’s approach to these poems is complex: we move through different metres, rhythms, tempi, tessiturae; and we are introduced to chromaticism and harmonic invention which further beautify Bardsley’s art. The aesthetic union of poet and composer is—perhaps, unconsciously—alluded to in the closing lines of the second sonnet: ‘If blind to transformations such as this, What other precious moments might I miss?’.

The Spring Sonnets were first performed by the BBC Singers live on BBC Radio 3 in December 2013.

Garth writes: “I was attracted by the structure of a Shakespearean sonnet and how I might create a musically settable (if such a word exists) and therefore singable poem which conforms to the sonnet structure (including the volta) and makes use of a strict iambic pentameter. It may be interesting to ask Ben how he approached the rhythmic structure (and then how he ignored it!!!!). I wanted to explore the ancient sense of man's mortality attached to winter - might the winter never end. In the depth of winter, it seems impossible that Spring will ever arrive and yet we 'know' and hope that it will but still there is some part of us that fears the worse. And then spring arrives and suddenly too - 

The world, o’ernight, had spun itself, in green,
A gauzy gown to hide the scars and dirt
Of Winter’s unkind reign.

How could we possibly have missed the moment when winter releases its grasp and if we miss such important moments then what else might pass us by?”

i.

The ground lies hard beneath the frozen sleet,
A carapace fast-formed at Winter’s touch.
Who, with its cold embrace, the world, did greet;
Within its grasp, all life locked fast. Oh, such
Fantastic, twisted shapes I see before
Me, each imprisoned by this Winter’s breath
An icy exhalation that makes hoar
Once-lively fronds to seem to mimic death.
And yet, this harsh veneer, this stubborn cold
That will not yield to my footstep, remains
Insensate to the lessons learned from old:
Winter’s brutal hold; newborn Spring disdains.
Hurry warmth! Defy the season’s chill this morn
That I might shake off death and be reborn. 

ii

 This morning, Spring appeared and though well known
To me, at first I did not recognise
The sweetness in the air, so softly blown,
That slowed my step and made me raise my eyes.
The world, o’ernight, had spun itself, in green,
A gauzy gown to hide the scars and dirt
Of Winter’s unkind reign. So bright, so clean,
This mantle all but hid the lasting hurt.
I stood entranced and wondered how so great
A change could happen unobserved? What sleight
Did Nature use to shroud her altered state
And hide the time when old and new unite?
If blind to transformations such as this,
What other precious moments might I miss?

© Garth Bardsley