On Poetry and Music
I am always searching for beautiful voices, and I’ve loved Ian Bostridge’s expressive tenor for many years. When I was in college, I heard him live in concert. Bostridge performs a setting of Tennyson’s “Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal,” and it is gorgeous. You will marvel at its serenity and depth:
Most readers first experience Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poetry through “Charge of the Light Brigade,” which I read in a freshman English class. As a high school senior, I studied “Ulysses” to prepare for the AP Literature exam. In fact I borrowed Tennyson’s final call for my speech at a black tie gala. My teacher would have applauded me in my apple-red gown telling donors that their efforts enabled me, “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
The Poem
“Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal” is an excerpt from The Princess, an extended work of comic verse. While the long poem offers a quasi-medieval love story worthy of Gilbert and Sullivan, this excerpt is one of the songs Tennyson later inserted. Its tone is meditative and tender— at odds with the poem’s general subject.
In setting the poem to music, Roger Quilter shortened its 14 lines, omitting three assertions in the middle. Perhaps because I first encountered this poem in its musical form, I actually prefer the abbreviated lyrics
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font.
The firefly wakens; waken thou with me.
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake.
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.
While I am no enthusiast for Romantic poetry, I can appreciate the soothing pastoral images Tennyson creates here. Even the “thou” and “thy”—which are better suited to Shakespeare and John Donne—seem to fit the poem’s archaic fantasy landscape. The princess sings these lines, and their tenderness is breathtaking. I love the final lines of each verse: “The firefly wakens; waken thou with me” and “So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip / Into my bosom and be lost in me.”
The Performance
This performance comes from Bostridge’s album, The English Songbook. Though Tennyson gives these lines to the poem’s female lead, the composer’s tenor setting loses nothing. Julius Drake’s delicate piano accompaniment emphasizes the lyrical tenderness.
This melody moves in small steps and arpeggio patterns, using upward leaps to highlight the princess’s gentle requests. “Waken thou” and “be lost” both move in upward fourths, giving the higher note a pleading quality.
Bostridge sings this excerpt from The Princess like a lullaby. His tenor voice has a rich caramel timbre. The first stanza ends with “me” on the first note of the key, which brings us musically home. But even as the tone softens and the volume lowers in the second stanza, the final “me” of “be lost in me” ends on the fifth note of the scale. Though this move provides musical resolution, it does not feel as “at home” as the first stanza, which underscores the longing of the final line.
More from Ian Bostridge
If you liked the excerpt from The Princess, you’ll love this performance of Yeats’ poem, “The Cloths of Heaven”:
Bostridge’s repertoire is extensive and capable. I appreciate the perspective Bostridge brings to Handel. His performance and commentary in this album preview are delightful:
And here’s something sprightly and dramatic in German from Schumann’s Liederkreis:
