canasg choral music publishing

YV6006

Ballad

poem by Judith Nicholls
set to music by Sheena Phillips

for SATB chorus
and piano

SATB performance time approx 2m 00s

from

A space trilogy

Composer's note

This piece is a ballad about the sadness felt in leaving the earth behind to travel through space. The poem, I think, beautifully expresses the pull between home and away, as well as between progress, or exploration of the new, and the past. The piano part should sound pensive and delicate, rather as harp or guitar might in accompanying a solo ballad singer.

The other two pieces in the trilogy are Andromeda and Moonscape, also published by Canasg.

Music

See a sample of the music

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Hear a MIDI file of the song

Words

Ballad

Why are you weeping, child of the future,
For what are you grieving, son of the earth?
Acorns of autumn and white woods of winter,
Song-thrush of spring in the land of my birth.

You have a new life, child of the future,
Drifting through stars to a land of your own.
With Sirius to guide you, Orion beside you
Wandering the heavens you are free from the earth.

I have a new life, the speckled skies' beauty,
Left far behind me the dark cries of earth;
Oh, but I long for the soft rains of April,
Ice-ferned Decembers and suns of the south.

What was I dreaming, to drift with Orion,
To leave for cold Neptune my home and my hearth?
Stars in their millions stretch endless, remind me
Far far behind lies my blue-marbled earth.

Here on the hillside the dawn is just rising,
Buttercups dew-fill, all silken and gold.
Well may you weep, sad child of the future,
Well may you weep for your beautiful world.

Judith Nicholls

Poem copyright Judith Nicholls 1985, from MAGIC MIRROR by Judith Nicholls, published by Faber & Faber. Used by permission of the author.

see the first... song in the cycle

Price

Follow this link to buy the Space Trilogy as a set. Alternatively, this page lets you buy Ballad separately. The price depends on the number of singers in your group. This is a single payment for a licence to make as many copies as you need for your group to rehearse and perform the song as often as you wish. Copies of the song must not be given, lent, hired or sold to any other group.

Number of singers in your group
up to 12 singers	13 to 24 singers	25 singers or more
Ł5 (approx US$8.00)	Ł10 (approx US$16)	Ł15 (approx US$24)
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Companion pieces

Browse the 'Scots' or 'Young voices' section of the Canasg catalogue for more songs like this one. To go there now, click on the 'catalogue' box to the right.

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