Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Poet), Ralph Vaughan Williams (Composer)
Year written: 1903 (Music Composition)
Music Composer: Ralph Vaughan Williams
Artist: Grace Stephens-Spada
Performed live at St. Peter’s Château d’Oex on 11 January 2024
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About this song
“Silent Noon” an art song by Ralph Vaughan Williams, a central figure in British music in the early 20th century. This piece forms part of his song cycle “The House of Life,” composed in 1903, which is a setting of six poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a prominent English poet and painter. “Silent Noon” stands out for its lyrical beauty and emotive power, capturing a moment of tranquil, intimate love within the beauty of the English countryside. The song’s pastoral imagery and the fusion of Rossetti’s evocative poetry with Vaughan Williams’ sensitive musical setting make it a quintessential example of English art song.
About the Artist
Grace began her musical career while singing as a young Chorister in Salisbury Cathedral. After becoming head chorister in her final year, she attended King’s School in Canterbury as a Music Scholar, where she continued to sing weekly in the cathedral and play regularly in the school’s symphony and chamber orchestras. While at the University of Leicester studying Medical Physiology, Grace continues her singing as part of Leicester Cathedral Choir.
Lyrics
Your hands lie open in
the long fresh grass, –
The finger-points look
through like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace.
The pasture gleams and glooms
‘Neath billowing skies
that scatter and amass.
All round our nest, far
as the eye can pass,
Are golden kingcup
fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley
skirts the hawthorn hedge.
‘Tis visible silence,
still as the hour glass.
Deep in the sunsearched
growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread
loosened from the sky: –
So this winged hour is
dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts,
for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When two fold silence was the song
the song of love.
———–
Looking for an Anglican Church near you? St. Peter’s, located in Chateau d’Oex, Switzerland offers English services each Sunday at 17h30. Our services are Anglican contemporary and last about one hour. You are warmly welcome to join us either in person or via our YouTube Livestream. Songs listed on our YouTube channel are regularly used in our worship.
Your hands lie open in the long fresh crass the finger points look through like BL your eyes smile PE the posture gleams and Gloom Bing Skies that SC All Around The Nest far as the eye can pass a golden King up field with silver Edge when the cowly SCS the whole on his visible silence still the deep in the sun grow the dragonfly hangs like a blue thread loen from the Sky So this swing that is to us From oh clasp we to our hearts for death St this close companion in A when trueful silence was the s s of