The Augmented Station Orchestra
Conducted by T.H. Morrison
This work consists of four more or less definite sections, to which the sections of the poem correspond.
I. Slow. - The sick man lies in his bed and dreams of 'childhood's golden day.'
II. Quick, with great agitation. - A fierce, delirious fight with Death. Once again there follows stillness, and in III. (Slower, a lengthy section), the dying man reviews, as in a trance, all his past life. At length, there comes a briefer, fiercer struggle, in which Death strikes his final blow.
IV. At a moderate speed, and Tranquil.-
The stillness of death is succeeded by the Transfiguration.
Lily Allen (Soprano) and Orchestra
'The Hillside'
A Ballad for Soprano and Baritone Soli by Eric Fogg
Poem by Rabindranath Tagore.
Lily Allen (Soprano)
Harry Hopewell (Baritone)
The Halle Chorus :
Chorus Master, Harold Dawber
The Augmented Station Orchestra,
Conducted by the Composer
ANYONE who attended the famous Halle Concerts at Manchester for thirty-five consecutive seasons must have constantly heard one man at the organ throughout the whole period. This was C. H. Fogg, who was Organist to the Halle Society for thirty-five years, and was, in fact, one of the best-known practical musicians in the North.
His son is Eric Fogg, born in February, 1903. By 1920 he had already written a very considerable output of music, and in that year he conducted a Ballet of his at a Queen's Hall 'Prom.' In the last few years he has simplified his style, and has already published a great deal of music which, in many opinions, not merely shows promise, but gives us actual achievement.
Some of his settings of Tagore (the Songs of Love and Life) have already been broadcast. The Hillside, the story of a vision of the departed, from The Gardener, dates from the same period as those - 1921.
Here are the complete words of Tagore's poem, reprinted by permission of Messrs. Macmillan and Co.:-
SHE dwelt on the hillside by the edge of a maize-field, near the spring that flows in laughing rills through the solemn shadows of ancient trees. The women came there to fill their jars, and travellers would sit there to rest and talk. She worked and dreamed daily to the tune of the bubbling stream.
ONE evening the stranger came down from the cloud-hidden peak; his locks were tangled like drowsy snakes. We asked in wonder, 'Who are you?' He answered not, but sat by the garrulous stream and silently gazed at the hut where she dwelt. Our hearts quaked in fear, and we came back home when it was night.
NEXT morning when the women came to fetch water at the spring by the deodar trees, they found the doors open in her hut, but her voice was gone and where was her smiling face? The empty jar lay on the floor and her lamp had burnt itself out in the corner. No one knew where she had fled to before it was morning-awl-the stranger had gone.
IN the month of May the sun grew strong and the snow melted, and we sat by the spring and wept. We wondered in our mind, 'Is there a spring in the land where she has gone and where she can fill her vessel in these hot, thirsty days?' And we asked each other in dismay, 'Is there a land beyond these hills where we live?'
IT was a summer night; the breeze blew from the south; and I sat in her deserted room where the lamp stood still unlit. When suddenly from before my eyes the hills vanished like curtains drawn aside. 'Ah, it is she who comes. How are you, my child? Are you happy? But where can you shelter under this open sky? And, alas! our spring is not here to allay your thirst.'
'There is the same sky,' she said, 'only free from the fencing hills-this is the same stream grown into a river-the same earth widened into a plain.' 'Everything is here,' I sighed, 'only we are not.' She smiled sadly and said, 'You are in my heart.' I woke up and heard the babbling of the stream and the rustling of the deodars at night.
