Across time
Across generations
The gifts of recorded sound
Connect the threads of remembrance
(Tennis and music bound them together).
In 1924, this work – The Sea
Knocked him sideways
The young boy – Britten
Shyly approaching its weathered creator
Bridge - his dapper ancient
For the keys to its invention
High craft the rock bed of their febrile hearts.
Remembered:
All forty-seven years later
That boy, now master – deeply ill
Plays the dead man’s music
A Bridge with taut progression
And summons forth its final pages
Awash with grandeur and elevation
Their memoirs surging on these waves.
Others may carefully map its structural refrain
But Britten the boy
Captures its schwung
Shaping its lines with steely rapture, in one gigantic breath.
Their ardent camaraderie catches fire
Recorded sound conspiring
To meld the generations
Baton to Baton, master to boy
Now Peter Grimes lurks in the wings.
Like the fluttering tongues of music’s ghosts
Love - hovers in the air.
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/britten-the-peformer-bridgebrittenholst
Gar Jones: November 2017
Across generations
The gifts of recorded sound
Connect the threads of remembrance
(Tennis and music bound them together).
In 1924, this work – The Sea
Knocked him sideways
The young boy – Britten
Shyly approaching its weathered creator
Bridge - his dapper ancient
For the keys to its invention
High craft the rock bed of their febrile hearts.
Remembered:
All forty-seven years later
That boy, now master – deeply ill
Plays the dead man’s music
A Bridge with taut progression
And summons forth its final pages
Awash with grandeur and elevation
Their memoirs surging on these waves.
Others may carefully map its structural refrain
But Britten the boy
Captures its schwung
Shaping its lines with steely rapture, in one gigantic breath.
Their ardent camaraderie catches fire
Recorded sound conspiring
To meld the generations
Baton to Baton, master to boy
Now Peter Grimes lurks in the wings.
Like the fluttering tongues of music’s ghosts
Love - hovers in the air.
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/britten-the-peformer-bridgebrittenholst
Gar Jones: November 2017