VOCES8 is joined by members of the VOCES8 Foundation Choir & Orchestra, and violin virtuoso Jack Liebeck for this performance of Vaughan Williams' 'The Lark Ascending', conducted by Artistic Director, Barnaby Smith.
Originally scored for orchestra and violin solo, this new adaption by Barnaby Smith combines Vaughan Williams' original score with fragments from Paul Drayton's choral arrangement, allowing for the George Meredith poetry which originally inspired Vaughan Williams to be heard with the full orchestral score for the first time.
The track is available on the new album 'To Sing of Love'. orcd.co/tosingoflove?
TEXT
He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound
Of many links without a break,
As up he wings the spiral stair,
A song of light, that pierces air
To reach the shining tops of day,
And drink in everything discern’d
An ecstasy to music turn’d.
He is, the hills, the human line,
The meadows green, the fallows brown,
He sings the sap, the quicken’d veins;
The wedding song of sun and rains
He is, the dance of children, thanks
Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks,
And eye of violets while they breathe;
All these the circling song will wreathe.
Was never voice of ours could say
Our inmost in the sweetest way,
Like yonder voice aloft, and link
All hearers in the song they drink.
George Meredith