11th Haldane Event
Thursday 22nd October 2009
UCL Housman Room
The Musical Box
Songs and readings of the poems of Thomas Hardy
with music by Benjamin Britten, Brian Blyth Daubney,
Gerald Finzi, John Ireland
and
Robin Milford
Cassandra Manning, soprano
Caroline Jaya-Ratnam, piano
Jonathan Shallcross, readings
Researched by Cassandra Manning
Devised by Cassandra Manning and Jonathan Shallcross
The Musical Box - A Journey
The genesis of this evening’s concert lay in a remark from a distinguished member of the
ASCR audience, after last year’s Housman recital: “Ah, but Hardy was the better poet!”
The idea of a complementary event, to showcase Hardy’s poetry, was immediately
appealing.
Between them, Housman and Hardy command the textual landscape of English song,
inspiring countless composers from Butterworth to Bax, Britten to Blyth Daubney. How
hard could it be to create a celebratory concert?
Certainly harder than we had expected. Although Hardy is arguably the better poet (and
by far the more prolific), Housman’s work, with its narrative themes and prosodic text,
lends itself much more readily to the medium of song. More than five hundred
compositions have been based on Housman’s texts, the poem ‘Loveliest of Trees’ alone
inspiring more than fifty.
It was our experience that, by contrast, composers’ responses to Hardy are more limited
in their emotional range, perhaps resulting from the relentless pessimism and obscured
meaning which pervades so much of his work. Once we had made a decision to avoid
country fairs and similar cliché – the better to express Hardy’s modernist twist – it
became particularly difficult to source material with sufficient light and shade to build an
emotionally satisfying narrative arc.
The answer came from an unexpected quarter: the music of Robin Milford. This unjustly
neglected composer breathed life into our work, imbuing it with strong folk roots,
delightful pastoral scene-setting and evocative character portrayal, as counterpoint to
Hardy’s elegy. Thus, we are proud to feature nine pieces of Robin Milford’s music in our
programme.
Unlike the Housman, our Hardy recital follows no neat theme of cyclical renewal and
redemption. This, we decided, would simply not be true to Hardy. Instead we have
chosen to focus on one aspect of the man: his interminable struggle with ‘love’ –
demonstrated so affectingly in his complex relationship with his first wife Emma Gifford,
the inspiration behind so much of his poetry and early prose.
The journey to create this recital has been arduous and yet deeply fulfilling – much like
experiencing a great Hardy poem. There are many wonderful works and musical settings
that we were loath to exclude, but which could play no part in this particular story. Even
so, they have enriched our lives.
We hope that you enjoy tonight’s offering, The Musical Box.
Cassandra Manning and Jonathan Shallcross
Cambridge, October 2009
Programme
To aid the smooth running of tonight’s recital, please save your applause until the end of each part. We should
also be grateful if you could read the texts supplied either before or after tonight’s performance.
The Musical Box
Part I:
Hardy
Song
‘The Colour’ Four Hardy Songs, No. 2
Robin Milford
Text from Late Lyrics and Earlier
Piano
‘Pastorale’ My Lady’s Pleasure, No. 1
Robin Milford
Song
‘Weathers’ Three Songs to Poems by Thomas Hardy, No. 3
John Ireland
Text from Late Lyrics and Earlier
Reading
‘On the Way’ from Late Lyrics and Earlier
Song
‘If It’s Ever Spring Again’
Robin Milford
Text from Late Lyrics and Earlier
Reading
‘A Young Man’s Exhortation’
Piano
‘Jig’ My Lady’s Pleasure, No. 3
Robin Milford
Song
‘Childhood Among the Ferns’ Before and After Summer, No. 1
Gerald Finzi
Text from Winter Words in Various Mood and Metres
Reading
‘She Did Not Turn’
Song
‘At Day Close in November’ Winter Words, No. 1
Benjamin Britten
Text from Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries
Reading
‘Let Me Enjoy (Minor Key)’, from Time’s Laughingstocks
Song
‘In My Sage Moments’ Five Poems by Thomas Hardy, No. 2
John Ireland
Text: ‘Come Not: Yet Come!’, from Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs
and Trifles
from Late Lyrics and Earlier
from Late Lyrics and Earlier

5-minute break

The Musical Box
Part II:
Emma
Piano
‘Prelude’ Prelude, Air and Finale for Piano, No. 1
Robin Milford
Reading
‘When I Set Out for Lyonnesse’
Song
‘Summer Schemes’ Three Songs to Poems by Thomas Hardy, No. 1
John Ireland
Text from Late Lyrics and Earlier
Reading
‘To Meet, or Otherwise’ from Satires of Circumstance
Song
‘Beckon to Me to Come’ Five Poems by Thomas Hardy, No. 1
John Ireland
Text: ‘Lover to Mistress’, from Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and
Trifles
Reading
‘Near Lanivet, 1872’
Piano
‘Air’ Prelude, Air and Finale for Piano, No. 2
Robin Milford
Reading
‘Had You Wept’
Song
‘The Sigh’
Brian Blyth Daubney
Text from Time’s Laughingstocks
Reading
‘Shut Out That Moon’
Song
‘Before Life and After’ Winter Words, No. 8
Benjamin Britten
Text from Time’s Laughingstocks
from Satires of Circumstance
from Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses
from Satires of Circumstance

from Time’s Laughingstocks
5-minute break

The Musical Box
PART III: The Going
Song
‘In Tenebris I’ In Tenebris I
Robin Milford
Text from Poems of the Past and the Present
Reading
‘The Going’
Piano
‘Finale’ Prelude, Air and Finale for Piano, No. 3
Robin Milford,
Reading
‘I Found Her Out There’
Song
‘Dear, Think Not That They Will Forget You’ Five Poems by Thomas Hardy,
No. 5
John Ireland
Text: ‘Her Temple’, from Late Lyrics and Earlier
Song
‘Proud Songsters’ Earth and Air and Rain, No. 10
Gerald Finzi
Text from Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres
Reading
‘The Musical Box’
Song
‘Tolerance’ Four Hardy Songs, No. 4
Robin Milford
Text from Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries
Reading
‘Moments of Vision’
Song
‘The Dance Continued’ A Young Man's Exhortation, No. 10
Gerald Finzi
Text: ‘Regret Not Me’, from Late Lyrics and Earlier
from ‘Poems of 1912–13’, Satires of Circumstance
from Satires of Circumstance
from Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses
from Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses

The End

Thomas Hardy and Emma Gifford
In 1870 Thomas Hardy, working as an architect’s clerk, was sent by his employer to look
at a church in need of restoration in St Juliot, near Boscastle, Cornwall. It was on this visit
that he met Emma Lavinia Gifford and fell in love with her. They were both 29 years old.
The early days of their courtship were halcyon. Emma is portrayed in Hardy’s poetry as a
spirit of nature, wonderfully bold and impetuous, cantering along Beeny Cliff with her
‘nut-coloured hair’ flowing:
‘O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free
The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.’ (‘Beeny Cliff’)
Their courtship continued for four years, despite the ardous journey to St Juliot from
Dorchester – Hardy had to take four different trains and a hired trap. Eventually, against
the wishes of both families, they were able to marry in September 1874 following the
publication of Far From the Madding Crowd, which brought Hardy critical and popular
acclaim. It was at this point spurred on by Emma, that Hardy gave up architecture and
became a full-time writer.
After nearly two years in London, followed by two happy years in Sturminster Newton (‘A
Two-Years’ Idyll’), the Hardys moved to Dorchester, and thence in 1885 to Max Gate, the
house designed by Hardy, in which they were to remain for the rest of their married life.
Emma never liked Max Gate, finding it dismal and austere. Away from her beloved
Cornwall she lost her vitality, as intimated in so many of Hardy’s later poems. Hardy was
an intensely introspective man, absorbed in his writing, and it was not long before they
inexorably drifted apart (‘We Sat at the Window, Bournemouth 1875’). The poem ‘He
Abjures Love’ was written in 1883, shortly before their 10th wedding anniversary.
There is much speculation about the cause of Emma’s state of mind in the latter part of
their relationship. Hardy withdrew from her, preferring the company of other women, and
years of estrangement and mutual hostility took their toll. A further entrance to the
house was built, so that they could avoid each other as they came and went. In 1899
Emma moved permanently into the attic apartments.
Hardy became infatuated more than once during his 38-year marriage; in 1893 he fell in
love with Florence Henniker, although it seems that she did not return his ardour (‘A
Broken Appointment’). In 1904 he met Florence Dugdale, 39 years younger than himself.
He introduced her to Emma, and in 1910 Florence came to live at Max Gate as Hardy’s
secretary. At first Emma felt she was a friend, but this could not last. In 1912 Emma
died unexpectedly, and in 1914 Florence became the second Mrs Hardy.
Despite the failure of their relationship, Emma’s death devastated Hardy. There followed a
huge outpouring of sorrow and remorse. Again, this time in death, Emma proved to be a
source of inspiration for the grieving Hardy (‘Poems of 1912–13’), an inspiration that was
to last until his own death in 1928 at the age of 87.
Hardy had expressed a wish to be buried with Emma, in Stinsford churchyard. His wish
was only partly regarded: his body was cremated and interred in Poet's Corner, in
Westminster Abbey; his heart was removed and buried with Emma.
About the Artists
Macbeth, Leonora La Forza del Destino,
Amelia Un Ballo in Maschera, Leonora Il
Trovatore, Abigaille Nabucco, Helmwige Die
Walküre and Third Norn Götterdämmerung.
She sang Gutrune and covered the role of
Sieglinde for Longborough Festival Opera’s
Der Ring Des Nibelungen (Jonathan Dove’s
Ring Saga), at Longborough Festival Opera
and at The Arts Theatre, Cambridge.
Cassandra Manning
Soprano
Cassandra Manning studied on scholarship at
the London College of Music. She was
recipient of the John Ireland Prize, the Henry
Baker Memorial Prize for singers, the Alice
Vera Smith Prize for performance, the Jean
Lloyd Webber Prize for Light Music and the
LCM Medallion, representing the LCM at the
Purcell Room, South Bank. In 1992,
nominated by the LCM, she was a finalist in
Cosmopolitan magazine’s “Woman of the
Year’ award.
Post LCM she joined the Welsh National
Opera. Roles for WNO include Young Widow
Osud; Slave Salome and Ludmila The
Bartered Bride under the baton of Sir Charles
Mackerras. Other roles include Lady Macbeth
Cassandra also performs with Nicole Panizza
(pianist) on the doctoral tour Wrestling with
the Giant: Emily Dickinson and her Musical
Interpreters, including MIDAS Workshop at
the RCM; PhD Music Students Conference,
University of Edinburgh; Music and Ideas
Seminar at RCM and for the Royal Music
Association at University of Surrey.
Cassandra and Nicola have also performed
together in recital in 2006 at the Dublin
International Concert Hall; in An Evening of
American Song at the Victoria and Albert
Museum; and at the National Gallery, London.
In 2008 performances included Godalming
Choral Society Opera Gala, St James,
Piccadilly American Art Song including a
performance of Tom Cipullo’s cantata A Visit
With Emily; Mahler’s Lieder eines Fahrenden
Gesellen at the University of Bonn
Conference on Intermediality, and for
University College London a recital based on
the works of A E Housman, ‘White in the
Moon the Long Road Lies’.
~~~~~~~~~~
Caroline read music at Cambridge holding an
Instrumental Award, a Choral Exhibition and
playing the violin in the Cambridge University
Chamber Orchestra. She completed her
Masters Degree and was later appointed the
Geoffrey Parsons Junior Fellow at the Royal
College of Music.
Caroline Jaya-Ratnam
Pianist
Caroline Jaya-Ratnam began her fledgling
music career in Middlesbrough where, a
frequent winner in local music festivals, she
sang solo, at the tender age of 9, Rossini’s
‘The Little Shepherdess’ on Radio Cleveland.
Caroline is in particular demand as an
accompanist and appeared on BBC television
and Radio 3 accompanying in the BBC Young
Musician of the Year 2000 and 2004
competitions, Belgian Radio accompanying in
the Queen Elizabeth competition and she was
interviewed twice and performed thrice on
Radio 3s ‘In Tune’, with Sean Rafferty, with
violinists Charles Siem and Fanny
Clamagirand (winner of the International
Kreisler competition).
Competition successes include the
accompanists’ prizes in: the Great Elm Vocal
Awards, the Performing Australian Music
competition, the Haverhill Sinfonia Soloists
Competition, the John Ireland and Sir Arthur
Bliss prizes and Sir Henry Richardson Award.
Caroline was recently repetiteur for conductor
Charles Hazlewood on Kurt Weill’s Lost in the
Stars performed and broadcast on BBC Radio
from the Queen Elizabeth Hall. In August
2009 she played the piano in the BBC Concert
Orchestra for the ‘Evolution Prom’ at the
Royal Albert Hall featuring Goldie’s
composition Sine Tempore conducted by
Charles Hazlewood.
Caroline has been a repetiteur on the music
staff at English National Opera working with
conductors Ed Gardner and Richard Hickox
and artists including Dame Ann Murray,
Henry Goodman, Michael Ball and Alfie Boe.
She was Director of Music at St Matthew’s
Church in Croydon (2006–2008) and is
currently a Vocal Repertoire Coach at the
Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Caroline
was the featured piano soloist on the
soundtrack of the film Wer Liebe Verspricht
released on ZDF.
Caroline has also performed as a concerto
soloist, most notably in Saint-Saens' Piano
Concerto in G minor. An accomplished
violinist, she won several conservatoire places
to study as both a pianist and violinist at the
age of seventeen, going on to perform as the
soloist in several violin concertos whilst at
school, university and beyond (Bruch G Minor,
Mendelssohn E Minor, Bach E Major, SaintSaens – Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso).
Caroline has performed internationally as far
as New Zealand and her London appearances
have included duo recitals at the Royal
Festival Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields, the
Purcell Room and the Wigmore Hall.
With Cassandra Manning and Jonathan
Shallcross, Caroline performed in the ASCR
Housman recital ‘White in the Moon the Long
Road Lies’.
~~~~~~~~~~
at the age of 26, had risen to the rank of
Creative Director. During this time he was
responsible for the introduction of Nokia
Mobile Phones into the UK, whilst
simultaneously attempting to preserve the
nation’s affections for Basildon Bond writing
paper.
By the mid-1990s he tired of management
and moved to Brighton, working as a
freelance writer. During these years,
alongside his usual advertising copy, he wrote
poetry, penned a BBC radio play and, most
importantly, produced a daughter.
Born in 1961, Jonathan Shallcross was
educated at Cranbrook School and Emmanuel
College, Cambridge, where he read Maths and
Physics. In 1983, during his final year, he was
commissioned to write a history book as part
of the College’s quatercentenary celebrations.
Finding writing more inspiring than physics,
he set aside thoughts of a scientific career
and became a full-time writer.
In the latter half of the decade Jonathan
entered the world of advertising and by 1987,
In 1998 Jonathan returned to live in
Cambridge – where, earlier this year, he reentered the world of commerce by buying his
former company, Russell Associates, and
transforming it into a successful web-based
marketing agency. He is very happy to be
back in an office with other human beings.
Jonathan was the reader for the 2008 ASCR
Housman recital ‘White in the Moon the Long
Road Lies’.
Brief notes on the composers
Brian Blyth Daubney (1929 – )
Brian Blyth Daubney studied with Benjamin Burrows at Leicester University, and later privately
later with Kenneth Leighton.
After RN service as an Instructor Officer at the Royal Marines School of Music, Brian taught music
and drama in schools and the City of Leicester College of Education.
His compositions were often written for plays, but since his retirement in 1999 he has built up a
catalogue of over 200 songs and a substantial body of works for choir and instruments.
Thirty of his songs, including the one featured in tonight’s programme, appear on a CD, October
Roses, issued by the British Music Society (BMS 433). Along with many poets of British renown,
two contemporary poets, previously unset, appear on that disc: the American Theodora Goss and
the English poet John Alan Davis.
Blyth Daubney was for some years producer and conductor for the Little Theatre of Leicester,
Leicester Opera and three American Savoyard Companies.
He now lives in busy retirement in his native Lincolnshire.
Benjamin Britten (1913 – 1976)
Benjamin Britten was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk. He began composition at the age of five and
during the following five years wrote six string quartets and ten piano sonatas. While still at school
he worked at the piano with Harold Samuel and at composition with Frank Bridge. Then he won a
scholarship to the Royal College of Music, where his composition teacher was John Ireland and his
piano teacher Arthur Benjamin.
Amongst his early publications were many choral works and solo songs. The string Variations on a
theme by Frank Bridge was one of the early works which brought him into serious public notice
(1937), and from the same period he began a considerable activity as a composer of music for over
twenty documentary films, also providing incidental music for several stage plays.
In April 1939 he went with Peter Pears to America, where he wrote a number of important works,
among them the Violin Concerto, the song-cycle Les Illuminations for high voice and strings, and
the orchestral Sinfonia da Requiem. Back in England in 1942, Britten began work on the opera that
would establish him as the pre-eminent British composer of his generation – Peter Grimes,
premiered to an ecstatic audience reaction on 7 June 1945, with Peter Pears in the title role.
Britten now composed one major work after another, contributing significantly to symphonic,
chamber and choral music, and in particular to opera, through The Rape of Lucretia (1946), Albert
Herring (1947), Billy Budd (1951), Gloriana (1953), The Turn of the Screw (1954), Noye’s Fludde
(1957), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1960), Owen Wingrave (1970–71) to Death in Venice (1971–
73).
The importance of Britten and Pears in post-War British cultural life was enhanced by their
involvement in the founding of the English Opera Group in 1946 and the Aldeburgh Festival two
years later. Britten’s career as a composer was matched by his outstanding ability as a performer,
both as accompanist and conductor.
Gerald Finzi (1901 – 1956)
Born in London, Gerald Finzi studied composition under the composer Ernest Farrar, and from 1917
with Edward Bairstow at York Minster, later studying with R. O. Morris, one of the outstanding
British teachers of the inter-war years. His first published work was ‘By Footpath and Stile’ (192122), a song-cycle for baritones and string quartet to texts by Hardy, whose work Finzi greatly
admired.
In London he became acquainted with Vaughan Williams, whose influence he was always to
acknowledge, Holst, Bliss, Rubbra and Ferguson. He taught at the Royal Academy of Music for
three years before moving to the country in 1933, the year which saw a complete performance of
his song-cycle ‘A Young Man’s Exhortation’ (1926-29).
The outbreak of war caused the cancellation of Finzi’s song-cycle ‘Dies Natalis’ (1925-39) at the
Three Choirs Festival, and during the war he was drafted into the Ministry of War Transport and
opened his house to a number of German and Czech refugees.
With the return of peace Finzi began to receive a series of important commissions including a
Clarinet Concerto (1948-49) for Frederick Thurston, which was perhaps his best known work; his
masterpiece 'Intimations of Immortality' (1938-50), for tenor, chorus and orchestra; and his Cello
Concerto (1951-52, 54-55), commissioned by Sir John Barbirolli for the 1955 Cheltenham Festival,
which was first broadcast the night before he died.
John Ireland (1879 – 1962)
John Ireland studied piano at the Royal College of Music from 1893 to 1897, continuing at the
College until 1901 as a composition scholar, under Sir Charles Stanford. At the age of 16 he was
awarded a fellowship at the Royal College of Organists, the youngest student ever to receive one.
His fellow students at the RCM included Vaughan Williams and Holst.
From 1904 until 1926 Ireland held the post of organist at St Luke’s, Chelsea, which allowed him
time to compose. Soon after the end of World War I he joined the staff of the RCM as Professor of
Composition, a position he held for many years; his pupils there included Benjamin Britten and E. J.
Moeran. He was also a music examiner and Inspector of Music in Schools for the Associated Board
of the Royal Schools of Music.
Ireland had been composing since boyhood but, fiercely self-critical, he destroyed all his early
works; his earliest surviving work therefore dates only from 1903. His imagination was always
stimulated by images, particularly of landscapes; and his sensitive, unemphatic and meticulous
music has a peculiarly English quality of emotion expressed through reserve.
Robin Milford (1903 – 1959)
Robin Milford was the son of Sir Humphrey Milford, a publisher, who set up the music department
of the Oxford University Press. Robin grew up in Surrey, and was later educated at Rugby school,
then the Royal College of Music. He was a pupil of Vaughan Williams and Holst, and was lifelong
friend of Gerald Finzi, and there is ample evidence of these influences in his music.
Early in his career Robin Milford took over the direction of the Leith Hill choir, in Surrey, and a
large proportion of his early compositions were for voice, both choral and solo. He wrote a number
of cantatas, one of which, 'The Passing Year', had its first performance by Wrington Choral Society
in March 1953. He also wrote larger works, including an oratorio, a symphony, various overtures
and incidental music for radio plays, as well as many chamber works, organ works and anthems.
He also taught music in schools. A number of choral pieces for women's voices date from this time.
Robin Milford moved from Berkshire to Butcombe in Somerset, in part to aid recovery after the
tragic death of his young son in 1941, which had badly affected his health and his work. Although
remaining in poor health and not able to work as much as he would have liked, he continued to
compose, and also worked as a music reviewer and critic for the BBC in Bristol.
During his lifetime Milford was well known in the musical world, although his work was never
widely performed. His music, largely forgotten, is still recognised among those interested in 20th
Century English music, and his songs in particular are still performed and recorded, and promoted
in the academic world.