Songs from the Chinese Poets

Songs from the Chinese Poets are series of settings in six parts by Granville Bantock.[1] The English song texts were mainly supplied by Captain L. A. Cranmer Byng (1872-1945), who had also supplied the text for Choral Suite from the Chinese (1914). Launcelot Alfred Cranmer-Byng was part of the Byng baronets family and wrote various books on China.[2]

In 1933 the first set were also arranged in the form of a four movement string quartet under the title In a Chinese Mirror. It was recorded for the first time by the Tippett Quartet in 2021.[3]

Bantock also set other English translations of Chinese poetry from Edward Powys Mathers (Five Chinese Songs) and Herbert Giles (Ten Songs from the Chinese, 1943).[4]

Songs

Songs from the Chinese Poets, Series I (1918)

  • The old fisherman of the mists and waters
  • The ghost road
  • Under the moon
  • The celestial weaver
  • Return of spring


Songs from the Chinese Poets, Series II (1919)

  • The tomb of Chao-Chün
  • A dream of spring
  • Desolation
  • The Island of Pines
  • The pavilion of abounding joy


Songs from the Chinese Poets, Series III

  • From the tomb of an unknown woman
  • Adrift
  • The golden nenuphar
  • Yung-Yang
  • A feast of lanterns


Songs from the Chinese Poets, Series IV

  • Autumn across the Frontier
  • The Kingfisher's Tower
  • On the banks of Jo-Eh
  • Despair
  • The last revel


Songs from the Chinese Poets, Series V

  • The court of dreams
  • Down the Hwai
  • Night on the mountain
  • The lost one
  • Memories with the dusk return
  • And there are tears


Songs from the Chinese Poets, Series VI

  • The King of Tang
  • Wild geese
  • Exile
  • Willow flowers
  • Dreaming at Golden Hill
  • Galloping home

Recordings

John McCormack (tenor) recorded "Desolation" in Australia in 1927.

References

  1. ^ Martin Clayton, Bennett Zon Music and Orientalism in the British Empire, 1780s–1940s (2007), 0754656047, page 143: "Over the next few years Bantock produced a few other Oriental works, such as a Choral Suite from the Chinese (1914) and 25 Songs from the Chinese Poets (191 8-20) with English texts by his friend Captain L. A. Cranmer Byng, ..."
  2. ^ Myrrha Bantock Granville Bantock: a personal portrait (1972), p.161 "The English texts were mostly supplied by Captain L. A. Cranmer Byng. The two men, both Welsh bards, struck up a close friendship. They were often seen together at the National Eisteddfod of Wales — a distinguished pair, one in white and .."
  3. ^ Dutton CDLX7389 (2021)
  4. ^ Myrrha Bantock Granville Bantock: a personal portrait (1972), p.191
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