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Folk for soprano and orchestra (2024)
Full Score
Chester Music Helen Grime
Commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and Britten Pears Arts
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First performed on 26 September 2024 at City Halls, Glasgow, UK by Claire Booth (soprano) and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth.
Duration: c. 25 minutes
INSTRUMENTATION
2 Flutes (II/Piccolo)
2 Oboes (II/Cor Anglais)
2 Clarinets in Bb Bassoon Contrabassoon
2 Horns in F
2 Trumpets in C
2 Trombones
Tuba
Percussion (2 players):
I: Glockenspiel (shared), Tam-Tam (shared), Whip, Bass Drum
II: Glockenspiel (shared), Vibraphone, Tubular Bells, Tam-Tam (shared), Sizzle Cymbal, Large Suspended Cymbal, Congas
Celesta
Harp
Solo Soprano Strings
in C
CONTENTS
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I Prick Song
II Fishskin, Hareskin
III Water Bull Bride
IV Long Have I Lain Beside the Water
TEXT
I Prick Song
Listen now: high on the headland, All of Neverness is here. Hear the thump of running feet. Torches spit and crackle fire.
Look now: high on the headland, Gorse flowers bright as flame. A spiky maze for boys to run, A cruel, frantic kissing game.
Listen. Hot breath of boys, Chanting in the dark: Gorse Mother, Gold Mother. Drink me deep. Drink me up.
Wait with us, high on the headland. All us villagers have come: Fisher, farmer, midwife, miller, Fiddler, brewer, bard.
Take a torch, flame held high, Turn the dark sky bright.
Gorse becomes a crackling fire To burn away the night.
Sniff the smoke; breath of boys, Chanting in the dark: Gorse mother, Gold mother, Drink me deep. Drink me up.
Girls receive their prickly kisses, Bloodied boys grow into men. This year, high on the headland, Our gorse mother burns again.
pg 1
pg 38
pg 62
pg 88
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II Fishskin, Hareskin
Dew-beater, dew-hopper, layer with the lambs. I summon my darling hares, Blue-grey, yellow-speckled Memories: of sun-warmed fur, Long-lost puddle gaze.
Fiddle-foot, light-foot, skulker in the ferns. My fishwife tasks remain undone: Oiler of sealskins, sharpener of gutting knives [In] Fishskin stink, saltwater damp. A fishwife he would make of me.
Dew-beater, dew-hopper, layer with the lambs. A hare is bad luck for a fisherman. I long to summon blue-grey fur, But a herring swells in my belly. A fishwife I must be.
Fiddle-foot, light-foot, skulker in the ferns. Three pelts stretched on the drying hook, Blue-grey, yellow-speckled. A sharpened knife rusted in [sea] salt air. The fishwife’s curse I call.
Dew-beater, dew-hopper, layer with the lambs. My darling hares are gone. But a hare skin for my herring child, Is soft, and dry, and warm. A fishwife I’ll never be.
III Water Bull Bride
Wind drumming, A devil-dance of a storm. But I hear the knocking. There at the warping door,
A man such as I have never seen. Such hair, such skin, Taut across his fine-turned limbs. Come in, come in.
Stroking his seal-pup hair, How hard his body curls. Breathe in deep, his scent Of water bull, water bull.
Danger thrumming in my belly. Run for the river! Silver eyes follow me. Brindled arm around my waist, His beast-bearing weight,
And we plunge, headlong, Into the depths. His kiss, my first, A bruise on my lips.
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As waterweeds we sway in the dark, A sighing dance. Pleasure pours into me watery cold, The sweetest ache [I ever felt].
Love is dance with a water bull. In our river cave, he wraps me in weeds. No need for breath down here, my love. He kisses me, kisses me.
IV Long Have I Lain Beside the Water
My daughter plays a bone-white fiddle. Your bones, Sister, planed and turned. Dragged up from the rushing river Where she sought her fiddler’s soul.
My daughter’s music tells the hidden Truth: how I helped you drown. Your beauty, Sister, ate away My heart. Envy made me hard.
Your bones, Sister, long forgotten, Singing now through string and bow. My jealousy has never lessened Though I drowned you long ago.
Zoe Gilbert (2022)
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PERFORMANCE NOTE
Flutes
use the fingering of the notated pitch and move rapidly through the harmonics following the notated contour
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J‰‰Œ
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J‰‰Œ
J‰‰Œ
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nœ j‰‰Œ
J‰‰Œ
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II–Fishskin,Hareskin
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Violoncello
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Hn.1
Hn.2