Thread About My Heart (2020)
Settings of William and Dorothy Wordsworth
Solo Soprano, SATB, Harp & String Orchestra (or Solo Soprano, SATB & Piano)
Commissioned by The Wordsworth Singers to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of William Wordsworth
Duration:
25′
First performance:
21 May 2022
The Wordsworth Singers, Adderbury Ensemble, Mark Hindley, St John’s Church, Keswick, Cumbria, UK
First performance (piano version):
20 May 2023
The Wordsworth Singers, Vincent Wiguna (piano), Mark Hindley, United Reform Church, Cockermouth, Cumbria, UK
Recording
Thread About My Heart (2020) by Phillip Cooke, performed by The Wordsworth Singers, conducted by Mark Hindley at the St Cuthbert's Church, Carlisle, UK on 21 May 2023.
Score
Programme note
Thread About My Heart is the second-largest piece that I have written to date, and certainly the most substantial since my oratorio Noah’s Fire that was premiered in 2015. It is, somewhat remarkably, the first time that I have set the words of any of the Lake Poets, never mind the work of the most illustrious of the group, William Wordsworth. Coming from the Lake District, it has regularly been suggested to me that I should set some of the work of Wordsworth, Taylor-Coleridge, Southey et al to music, but try as I might, I have never found anything that appealed to me – it is certainly great poetry (in the main) but it has rarely inspired me to conjure up any music to accompany it – I presumed that this might always be the case. However, when I was approached by The Wordsworth Singers to set some of the eponymous poet, and diary entries from his sister, Dorothy, I was able to reassess the work and my own feelings towards it. Whether it is age, experience, or a little of them both, I found the poetry suddenly more open to me, speaking about ideas and events that seemed a lot more accessible than my younger self had ever dreamed to encounter.
The idea of interweaving the work of the siblings may have been one of those concepts that sounded good in the abstract, but was much more difficult to realise in the practical – the dense yearnings of William’s poetry against the free-flowing descriptions in Dorothy’s diaries – the changes of tone, mood and delivery always going to be somewhat at odds with each other. However, when you strip back the style and genre, they are essentially describing the same thing: an instant reaction to the natural, to the romantic and to the culture that lay on their very doorstep. Yes, one is much more learned and mannered than the other, but the way the two styles reflect on each other is strangely successful, with the relationship between these two modes of delivery being much closer at heart than I had ever imagined. The idea was good, conceptually, but it was also something that was inspiring me to want to set these texts to music.
I decided to enhance the differences in tone and style even further in my music, mainly through having different performers for the different authors: William’s poems are set for full choir, harp and strings, whereas Dorothy’s entries for solo soprano, solo viola and harp. In doing this, the more formal style of the poetry is enshrined in the collective music-making, the much more intimate diary fragments in a song-like, domestic setting for a small group of players. The style of the music is similar throughout, though the diary sections are more arioso, more flowing and freer from the more expressive and emotional content of the poetic settings. All the seven movements do share material, with several important chords, two notes and one theme binding the work together – the piece as a whole could be seen as the exploration of how different moods and atmospheres can be obtained through minimal material, with maximum manipulation.
Like many of my pieces, I can be quite rigid with my self-enforced limitations that are governed by an overriding concept – in Thread About My Heart it is the solo soprano that is kept apart from the rest of the performers for almost the whole work. However, whether it is age or a gradual softening of approach, the solo soprano finally gets to appear with the others at the very end of the final movement, soaring over the ensemble repeating the word ‘Peace’ and revelling in the final iteration of the ‘thread’ theme that has bound the work together – a fitting end to this musical memorial and celebration of the powerful poetry and prose of both Wordsworths and the place they still hold today in the landscape (both natural and cultural) of the Lake District.
PAC
