Programme Notes

In early September 2020, I was asked by the Mezzo Soprano Rebecca Leggett to write a short song for unaccompanied voice which had to have a Sussex theme.

Sussex has inspired many poets, both from home and abroad. Among the latter was Sara Teasdale - an American lyrical poet. The poem "On the Sussex Downs" (Downs being a term for rolling chalk hills) describes a scene where the persona is refleting on how happy they are while observing the birds and the landscape. This sense of happiness above all other things in the wilderness is quite poignant in retrospect: Teasdale lived with depression in the latter years of her life, and committed suicide in 1933 after a divorce and a bout of pnemonia.

I've set the poem in a relatively free metre, invoking a certain mindset of folksong that I often carry through into my work.