I’ve always held a place in my heart for poetry about love, so when I stumbled across the text of “The Roving Lover” by F. R. Higgins, I felt that keen spark of fascination that strikes you whenever you encounter a work that you connect with immediately.
If my Love came down from the Mourne hills
To the edge of the white-wood lake,
And hid her head on my pillow now
Before the birds awake,
I would string the stars on a blade of grass
And make my Love a crown
And I’d give my soul for a little kiss
To the girl from the County Down.I have roamed the roads with my paltry songs
And a wattle in my hand,
But her kindly eyes have led me on
Through a gold and holey land;
And the words I’ve heard from the noblemen
And the dames of Dublin town
Are cold beside the burning words
Of the girl from the County Down.
Higgins’ words are elegant, the phrasing of a daydreaming lover who’s pining for “the girl from the County Down”. I’m particularly struck how he crafts specific lines, such as, “I would string the stars on a blade of grass / And make my Love a crown”. Then, to follow that up with another statement, “I’d give my soul for a little kiss”. What gorgeous writing!
F. R. Higgins was clearly no stranger to vivid imagery and I find his words remarkably effective. I hope you will enjoy his poetry as well and find this work a proper setting of his expressions.
At this point in my life I was singing choir works and studying solo voice, so I was keen to write lines that I, as a singer, would want to sing. I don’t see this work as being terribly difficult for most SATB ensembles, but some vocal lines and dissonances could pose a challenge at first.
If you look at the opening page of the music (shown here in the image), the Sopranos introduce a vocal line that climbs up and down a hillside; nothing too crazy, yet enough elevation change to build melodic interest. Then, the Tenors join in, drawing a longer, upward slope of another hill. As all the voices join, the notes on the page depict a hillside of varying rises and falls, just how I imagine one might see in a real Irish landscape.
Tonally, the piece is basically a long-winding, downhill walk from C Major down to Bb-flat Major. Most of the work lives in a major key tonality with a brief departure into F Minor as we snake over to Eb-flat Major for the final, climactic moment.
This is one of my favorite works and I hope you enjoy singing it! I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Written & premiered at Louisiana State University by the LSU Choral Scholars, 2014
I’ve always held a place in my heart for poetry about love, so when I stumbled across the text of “The Roving Lover” by F. R. Higgins, I felt that keen spark of fascination that strikes you whenever you encounter a work that you connect with immediately.
If my Love came down from the Mourne hills
To the edge of the white-wood lake,
And hid her head on my pillow now
Before the birds awake,
I would string the stars on a blade of grass
And make my Love a crown
And I’d give my soul for a little kiss
To the girl from the County Down.I have roamed the roads with my paltry songs
And a wattle in my hand,
But her kindly eyes have led me on
Through a gold and holey land;
And the words I’ve heard from the noblemen
And the dames of Dublin town
Are cold beside the burning words
Of the girl from the County Down.
Higgins’ words are elegant, the phrasing of a daydreaming lover who’s pining for “the girl from the County Down”. I’m particularly struck how he crafts specific lines, such as, “I would string the stars on a blade of grass / And make my Love a crown”. Then, to follow that up with another statement, “I’d give my soul for a little kiss”. What gorgeous writing!
F. R. Higgins was clearly no stranger to vivid imagery and I find his words remarkably effective. I hope you will enjoy his poetry as well and find this work a proper setting of his expressions.
At this point in my life I was singing choir works and studying solo voice, so I was keen to write lines that I, as a singer, would want to sing. I don’t see this work as being terribly difficult for most SATB ensembles, but some vocal lines and dissonances could pose a challenge at first.
If you look at the opening page of the music (shown here in the image), the Sopranos introduce a vocal line that climbs up and down a hillside; nothing too crazy, yet enough elevation change to build melodic interest. Then, the Tenors join in, drawing a longer, upward slope of another hill. As all the voices join, the notes on the page depict a hillside of varying rises and falls, just how I imagine one might see in a real Irish landscape.
Tonally, the piece is basically a long-winding, downhill walk from C Major down to Bb-flat Major. Most of the work lives in a major key tonality with a brief departure into F Minor as we snake over to Eb-flat Major for the final, climactic moment.
This is one of my favorite works and I hope you enjoy singing it! I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Written & premiered at Louisiana State University by the LSU Choral Scholars, 2014
Minimum 10 copies per purchase.
