The Lion and the Deer (2007)

When Jila Peacock sent me her ‘shape poem’ calligraphies – Persian texts by Hafez, the 14th century metaphysical poet of Iran, they immediately suggested music. Each bird or animal, fashioned from Hafez’s texts, was accompanied by Jila’s own translation, and together we began to plan how these might form a musical work.

In 2006 I was asked by Leeds Lieder+ to write a song cycle for Mark Padmore and Roger Vignoles, and also by Portsmouth Grammar School to write a choral work for their annual Remembrance Day concert. These two offers seemed to link together, and I felt that both were ideal vehicles for Jila’s translations. Only one poem overlaps the two works, and this is the opening ‘Hoopoe’, which closes the Four Songs from Hafez cycle for Leeds, and, in a more developed version, opens and closes The Lion and the Deer. In Islamic mythology the hoopoe is the love messenger between Solomon and Sheba, the male and female aspects of the Divine countenance.

Like Jila Peacock’s ‘shape poems’, each of my settings reflects a bird or animal alluded to in the poem. The solo counter tenor part was written for Michael Chance, and the orchestration is founded on a small string orchestra, with trumpet, timpani, cello and harp soloists.

The first song, Hoopoe, is a solo for counter tenor, with the refrain ‘I will send you’, echoed by the choir. The trumpet, strong and lyrical, rides over the text, and the call of the bird is heard in glissando string solos.

The second, for choir, suggests the gentle footfall of a deer, with soft timpani beats, and steady, canonic choral writing. The colours are dark and pensive, using only the lower strings. The music is coloured by rustling bamboo chimes and rain stick. The harp writing is inspired by Classical Iranian setar music, with repeated notes and fast flourishes.

Falcon, the bird that can see the path to the Divine, is a double fanfare for counter tenor and trumpet. The choir provide wordless texture, and the strings long solo lines, using intervals typical of Persian chants.

Lion, the most optimistic of the movements, is the choral climax of the piece, with bright tonal colour and celebratory cymbals and gongs.

Horse, symbol of fidelity, is underpinned by wild and relentless timpani hooves, but contrasts with dreamy, measured vocal writing, and overlapping choral echoes. The central section features trumpet and harp, pausing for a moment before launching into the final gallop towards the end of the movement, and fading into the distance.

In the final song, which is a continuation/conclusion of the opening Hoopoe, the trumpet and timpani are silent. The former declamatory trumpet solos have become more gentle, reflective solo cello lines.

Through the six songs runs another strand. By placing the Hafez’ words in the context of Remembrance Day, I hoped to reflect an ultimate human goal – a theme of enduring love. I asked Claire Jepson, the Head of English at the school, if she would get the youngest pupils in the Senior School to think about war, and then express their reflections. This came to involve discussion of haikus. Several of the pupils experimented with this form and I have used extracts from this writing in counterpoint to the Hafez texts. Many of these lines (shown below in italics, and spoken by children) echo the same sentiment – that of the futility of conflict, and the desire for harmony amongst mankind. In the imagery of Hafez, the lion is Apollonian, or Mars, in contrast to the deer: Venus, or Love.

The Lion and the Deer was commissioned by The Portsmouth Grammar School for its Remembrance Sunday Concert in Portsmouth Cathedral on 11 November 2007, and first performed on that occasion by The Portsmouth Grammar School Chamber Choir (Chorus Master Andrew Cleary) and the London Mozart Players (Leader David Juritz) with soloists Michael Chance (counter tenor), Paul Archibald (trumpet) Sebastian Comberti (cello) and Skaila Kanga (harp), under the LMP/PGS Associate Conductor Nicolae Moldoveanu.