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- Judith Weir
Storm (1997)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
Commissioned by the CBSO
- 3fl(2pic,afl)/3perc/3vc
- SSAA+children's chorus
- 20 min
- Shakespeare
- English
Programme Note
Given the opportunity to write music for children's chorus and women's voices, I thought carefully about choosing words to sing which would especially suit the particular sound of these two ensembles. The light, airy, spacious world of Shakespeare's play The Tempest soon came to mind.
Of course, numerous composers have written incidental music for the play, and some of its songs, for instance "Where the bee sucks, there suck I" have been set perhaps more times than any other non-religious text. In addition, the play frequently mentions music in metaphorical ways, and it is little wonder that it has constantly fascinated musicians.
But for me as a theatregoer, the heroes of the play are not so much Prospero, Miranda and the other named characters, as the elements of The Tempest's natural environment: sea, wind, waves, air, and beyond that, magic and the spirit world. In fact, I have often wished that I could see a production of this play with no actors in it; and Storm is perhaps the soundtrack of that production, performed in a concert hall. I began by making my own 35-word version of of the plot of The Tempest, as follows:
'There is a storm at sea; some travellers are shipwrecked. (The storm was caused by magic.) Charmed by a spirit, they meet their long-lost relatives. Through the exercise of mercy, their ancient quarrels are healed.'
Using associated texts from the play (some of which, particularly the opening storm scene, I have shortened) I then wrote a narrative sequence of five movements:
1. Storm/Shipwreck; 2. Charm; 3. Magic; 4. Spirit; 5. Mercy.
The total duration of the piece is about twenty minutes.
The choruses are accompanied by an ensemble of nine players: three flutes, three cellos, three percussionists. The choice of flutes was an obvious one, mirroring the play's permanent concern with air and wind. The extensive percussion section features many simple metal and wooden objects which, I think sound like the kind of things that could have been washed up on a beach.
One section of Storm already existed before I began work on the whole composition; this was an earlier setting of the words "Our revels now are ended". It was written in memory of Stephen Baldwin, who died in an air crash at the age of 31. Without the encouragement of Stephen's mother, Sylvia Collins, to set this text, I would never had the nerve to lay my impious hands of the works of William Shakespeare.
STORM was written for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's two youth choruses, and first performed by them in Symphony Hall, Birmingham in 1998. The conductor was Simon Halsey.
Judith Weir
1. STORM
My heart! Cheerly!
Take in the sail
Down with the mast,
Lower, lower!
Lay her ahold
Set her two courses
Off to sea again
Lay her off! Let's all sink!
The washing of ten tides…….
1a. SHIPWRECK
Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea
For an acre of barren ground.
Long heath, brown furze, anything!
The wills above be done,
But I would fain die a dry death.
2. CHARM
While you here do snoring lie
Open-eyed conspiracy
His time doth take.
If of life you keep a care,
Shake off slumber and beware,
Awake, awake!
3. MAGIC
Ye elves of hills, lakes, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew…. I have bedimmed
The noontide sun…. graves at my command
Have waked their sleeper, opened, let them forth.
4. SPIRIT
Our revels now are ended. These, our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and are melted into air, into thin air.
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself.
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve………………..
We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
5. MERCY
Though the seas threaten, they are merciful.
I have cursed them without cause.
O wonder!
© Judith Weir
Of course, numerous composers have written incidental music for the play, and some of its songs, for instance "Where the bee sucks, there suck I" have been set perhaps more times than any other non-religious text. In addition, the play frequently mentions music in metaphorical ways, and it is little wonder that it has constantly fascinated musicians.
But for me as a theatregoer, the heroes of the play are not so much Prospero, Miranda and the other named characters, as the elements of The Tempest's natural environment: sea, wind, waves, air, and beyond that, magic and the spirit world. In fact, I have often wished that I could see a production of this play with no actors in it; and Storm is perhaps the soundtrack of that production, performed in a concert hall. I began by making my own 35-word version of of the plot of The Tempest, as follows:
'There is a storm at sea; some travellers are shipwrecked. (The storm was caused by magic.) Charmed by a spirit, they meet their long-lost relatives. Through the exercise of mercy, their ancient quarrels are healed.'
Using associated texts from the play (some of which, particularly the opening storm scene, I have shortened) I then wrote a narrative sequence of five movements:
1. Storm/Shipwreck; 2. Charm; 3. Magic; 4. Spirit; 5. Mercy.
The total duration of the piece is about twenty minutes.
The choruses are accompanied by an ensemble of nine players: three flutes, three cellos, three percussionists. The choice of flutes was an obvious one, mirroring the play's permanent concern with air and wind. The extensive percussion section features many simple metal and wooden objects which, I think sound like the kind of things that could have been washed up on a beach.
One section of Storm already existed before I began work on the whole composition; this was an earlier setting of the words "Our revels now are ended". It was written in memory of Stephen Baldwin, who died in an air crash at the age of 31. Without the encouragement of Stephen's mother, Sylvia Collins, to set this text, I would never had the nerve to lay my impious hands of the works of William Shakespeare.
STORM was written for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's two youth choruses, and first performed by them in Symphony Hall, Birmingham in 1998. The conductor was Simon Halsey.
Judith Weir
1. STORM
My heart! Cheerly!
Take in the sail
Down with the mast,
Lower, lower!
Lay her ahold
Set her two courses
Off to sea again
Lay her off! Let's all sink!
The washing of ten tides…….
1a. SHIPWRECK
Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea
For an acre of barren ground.
Long heath, brown furze, anything!
The wills above be done,
But I would fain die a dry death.
2. CHARM
While you here do snoring lie
Open-eyed conspiracy
His time doth take.
If of life you keep a care,
Shake off slumber and beware,
Awake, awake!
3. MAGIC
Ye elves of hills, lakes, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew…. I have bedimmed
The noontide sun…. graves at my command
Have waked their sleeper, opened, let them forth.
4. SPIRIT
Our revels now are ended. These, our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and are melted into air, into thin air.
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself.
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve………………..
We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
5. MERCY
Though the seas threaten, they are merciful.
I have cursed them without cause.
O wonder!
© Judith Weir
Scores
Preview the score
Reviews
The writing for a choir f trebles (paired with women's voices) is specially evocative in the crystalline 'While you here do snoring lie', where the insistent ticking of time is cleverly mimicked in the accompaniment for plucked cellos and tinkling percussion.
1st October 2015
[I]t clothes the disarmingly tonal vocal lines in shimmering textures. The appeal of the music is direct; it's a neatly conceived sequence, full of beguiling and wonderfully fresh sounds.
25th November 2010
Storm blows past Prospero, Ariel and co, replacing complex verses with a rough magic that's all Weir's own. It's an appealing miniature...the most effective passages coming from instrumentalists - small miracles done with three cellos, three flutes and three very multitasking percussionists.
25th November 2010
Commissioned to write a piece for the CBSO Youth Chorus, she opted for a version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest… The finished product, Storm, a meditation on the play rather than a narrative depiction, resonates long after its final chords faded away… Shakespeare ends by reconciling his characters to each other. Weir closes with humanity at one with nature…a minor masterpiece. Weir, one of the most fascinating composers working today, has lost none of her ability to astonish and amaze.
1st November 1997
Discography
Judith Weir: Storm
- LabelSignum Classics
- Catalogue NumberSIGCD421
- ConductorDavid Hill
- EnsembleBBC Singers / Choristers of Temple Church / Endymion
- Released1st May 2015