Eden Rock (2016)
(Elizabethan Sailor's Song, A Certain Man, Fauré, Eden Rock )

Eden Rock
for tenor and guitar
Text by Charles Causley

I. Elizabethan Sailor's Song "My love, my love is like a green box tree"

II. A Certain Man "Coming down Ridgegrove Hill, the charging wind"

III. Fauré "Take me aboard your barque, where the valuable water"

IV. Eden Rock "They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock"

Composer's Note
I knew Charles Causley well and worked closely with him from the late 1970s for about 15 years. Although we worked mainly on theatre pieces together he was also keen that I should set his poems and often made suggestions which he thought would work well or be particularly interesting. After his death in 2003 I did not want to rush into memorializing Charles (though I had written an orchestral work called Secret Destinations which contains a movement entitled 'Eden Rock') but, as his centenary approaches in 2017, I wanted to write something that would bring together his words and my music once again. I was spurred on by the chance to write for Mark Padmore – one of the fineest interpreters of English song – and the adventurous guitarist Morgan Szymanski for whom I have written a number of works. These songs are not a reverence or memorial, but I hope embody the energy of Causley's vision and finda musical equivalent of his colour and imagery.
Stephen McNeff

Commissioned by BBC Radio 3 for Mark Padmore and Morgan Szymanski

First performance at the Wigmore Hall, London (and live on BBC Radio 3) on 12th September 2016 as part of a BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert