Melodys of Earth and Sky (Suite for Narrator and Ensemble) (2024)
(Poems and prose by John Clare, incorporating nine ‘melodys’ from the fiddle-books of John Clare )

Melodys of Earth and Sky (2024) (c. 45 minutes) 

Commissioned by Presteigne Festival of Music and the Arts Limited, with generous funding from the Colwinston Charitable Trust

1. Song’s Eternity (The Gardengate)

2. First Love (Young Hussar)

3. The edge of the orison (Morgiana in Ireland)

4. The Toper’s Rant (Polka)

5. The Mother’s Advice (I’ll be married on Sunday)

6. On Gypseys (Morgan Rattler)

7. August, from ‘The Shepherds Calendar’ (Hornpipes)

Not just one of the most powerful poetic voices of nineteenth century rural England, poet John Clare was also an accomplished fiddle-player and collector of traditional folk melodys, ‘pricking’ down 263 in two books of fiddle-tunes. Melodys of Earth and Sky is an ongoing creative project that investigates the interrelationship between these two sides of Clare’s nature – the poet and the musician.

In its first version, Melodys was conceived as an instrumental songbook of selected Clare tunes which Philips creatively transcribed in 2021 for just clarinet and violin. For its subsequent NMC Recording, released in March 2021, the nine movements of Melodys were interspersed with Clare readings, recorded by actor Toby Jones, chosen thematically to resonate with the themes and character of the music.

This new version of Melodys, now a suite for actor and a larger ensemble of 10 players, seeks to bring these chosen Clare texts into closer alignment with the music. Clare’s words are no longer separate; they are embedded within the fabric of the music, thereby releasing their musicality. With a richer colour palette, Melodys’ sequence of Clare pictures is intensified, ranging from melancholy to sorrow, from wonder to inebriation and comedy, from intrigue to exuberant joy.

Melodys of Earth and Sky celebrates the legacy of Clare as poet and musician, while also offering vivid snapshots of rural life in Clare’s early nineteenth century England - its ways of life and traditions gradually disappearing in the throes of industrial revolution.