''Cycle for Declamation'' is a

song cycle A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle, of individually complete songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rarel ...

for tenor solo composed in 1954 by

Priaulx Rainier Ivy Priaulx Rainier (3 February 190310 October 1986) was a South African- British composer. Although she lived most of her life in England and died in France, her compositional style was strongly influenced by the African music remembered from h ...

(190386).Allmusic gives 1953 as the year of composition, Peter Pears 1954. The latterbeing the work's commissioner and original performerseems the more reliable source.

Description

The work was commissioned by the tenor

Peter Pears Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears ( ; 22 June 19103 April 1986) was an English tenor. His career was closely associated with the composer Benjamin Britten, his personal and professional partner for nearly forty years. Pears' musical career started ...

.Liner notes by Peter Pears on LP Argo ZK 28-29 It consists of settings of texts by

John Donne John Donne ( ; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathedr ...

(15721631), adapted from three of the ''Meditations'' in his ''

Devotions upon Emergent Occasions ''Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and severall steps in my Sicknes'' is a prose work by the English metaphysical poet and cleric in the Church of England John Donne, published in 1624. It covers death, rebirth and the Elizabethan concept ...

''. A typical performance takes 9 minutes. The titles of the songs are: # "Wee Cannot Bid the Fruits" (from ''Meditation XIX'') # "In the Wombe of the Earth" (from ''Meditation XVIII'') # "''Nunc, lento, sonitu dicunt, morieris''" (from ''Meditation XVII'')

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

. Now this bell, tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die. Peter Pears has said: "Whereas the medievals for the most part dispensed with any harmonic implications, here the composer has suggested a strong harmonic skeleton behind the solo voice, to fine effect: in the last section the use of different registers of the voice vividly underlines Donne's wonderful text.

The song texts

The texts use 17th century spelling. Modernised, they read:

1. "Wee Cannot Bid the Fruits"

We cannot bid the fruits come in May, nor the leaves to stick on in December. There are of them that will give, that will do justice, that will pardon, but they have their own seasons for all these, and he that knows not them, shall starve before that gift come. Reward is the season of one man, and importunity of another; fear is the season of one man, and favour of another; friendship the season of one man, and natural affection of another; and he that knows not their seasons, nor cannot stay them, must lose the fruits.

2. "In the Wombe of the Earth"

In the womb of the earth, we diminish, and when she is delivered of us, our grave opened for another, we are not transplanted, but transported, our dust blown away with profane dust, with every wind.

3. "''Nunc, lento, sonitu dicunt, morieris''"

''Nunc, lento, sonitu dicunt, morieris''. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth. ''Morieris''.Latin. Thou must die. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell, which upon any occasion rings? ''Morieris''. But who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of the world? ''Nunc, lento, sonitu dicunt, morieris''. No man is an island, entire of itself; no man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were. ''Morieris''. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. ''Morieris''. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. ''Nunc, lento, sonitu dicunt, morieris''.

References

Footnotes

Song cycles by Priaulx Rainier Classical song cycles in English 1954 compositions Musical settings of poems by John Donne {{classical-composition-stub