The Window (song cycle)
Encyclopedia
The Window; or, The Songs of the Wrens is a song cycle
Song cycle
A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...

 by Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...

 with words by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Written in 1867–70, it was eventually published in 1871. There are multiple versions of the title: On the cover of the 1871 edition, the subtitle is given as "The Loves of the Wrens", however, "Songs of the Wrens" is used on the frontispiece and is the one generally used.

Background

George Grove
George Grove
Sir George Grove, CB was an English writer on music, known as the founding editor of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians....

, the secretary of The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...

, originally suggested a collaboration between Tennyson and Sullivan on a German-style song cycle, in English, but similar to Schubert's Die Schöne Müllerin
Die schöne Müllerin
Die schöne Müllerin , is a song cycle by Franz Schubert on poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the earliest extended song cycle to be widely performed. The work is considered one of Schubert's most important, and it is widely performed and recorded....

. Grove was a friend of Sullivan's and an early promoter of his music. An English-language narrative song cycle, like Schubert's, was a novelty. John Everett Millais
John Everett Millais
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early life:...

 agreed to illustrate the poems for a handsome publication. On October 17, 1866, Grove and Sullivan dined with Tennyson at his home on the Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...

, where they began to discuss the piece.

By February 1867, Tennyson had a draft of the text, but Sullivan noted in a letter he wrote home from Tennyson's house on February 10:
He read me all the songs (twelve in number), which are absolutely lovely, but I fear there will be a great difficulty in getting them from him. He thinks they are too light, and will damage his reputation, &c. All this I have been combating, whether successfully or not I shall be able to tell you tomorrow.


In August 1867, Tennyson had revised the words, and they were printed privately by Sir Ivor Guest. But Tennyson refused to allow publication until November 1870, when he finally agreed. By this time, however, Millais had sold the drawings he had prepared, except for one, and he was too busy to work any further on the project.

The songs were finally published early in 1871 and included the twelve poems by Tennyson, eleven of which Sullivan had set to music, just the one illustration by Millais, and the following preface by Tennyson:
Four years ago Mr. Sullivan requested me to write a little song-cycle, German fashion, for him to exercise his art upon. He had been very successful in setting such old songs as "Orpheus with his Lute", and I drest up for him, partly in the old style, a puppet, whose almost only merit is, perhaps, that it can dance to Mr. Sullivan's instrument. I am sorry that my four year old puppet should have to dance at all in the dark shadow of these days [the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...

]; but the music is now completed, and I am bound by my promise. In 1900, a second edition omitted the illustration and Tennyson's preface.

Songs in the cycle

I. On the Hill – "The Lights and Shadows fly."
II. At the Window – "Vine, Vine and Eglantine."
III. Gone! – "Gone ! Gone till the end of the year."
IV. Winter – "The Frost is here, and Fuel is dear."
V. Spring – "Birds' Love and Bird's Song."
VI. The Letter – "Where is another Sweet as my Sweet?"
VII. No Answer – "The Mist and the Rain."
VIII. No Answer. – "Winds are loud and you are dumb."
IX. The Answer – "Two little Hands that meet."
IXB. Ay! - "Be merry, all birds, to-day."1
X. When? – "Sun comes, Moon comes, Time slips away."
XI. Marriage Morning – "Light so low upon Earth."


1 Sullivan did not set this song, but it is included in the score as poetry.

Recording

The song cycle was recorded in 1989 by Peter Allanson (baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...

) and Stephen Betteridge (piano) on Symposium, 1074, as part of their recording, An Album of Victorian Song.

External links

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