Bird Raptures

Bird Raptures, a set of three pieces which draw inspiration stylistically from twentieth-century partsong, was composed for St Martin’s Voices in spring 2025, especially for Lucy Walker’s debut album (Resonus, RES10361). The text for The Nightingale, Christina Rossetti’s poem Bird Raptures, from which the set takes its title, lulls the listener with a lilting metre, and describes the captivating power of a nightingale’s song to connote both sorrow and joy. This setting is an invented folksong, beginning with a wistful soprano solo before easing into a full choir verse. The same melody is re-harmonised twice, featuring both sinewy, jazz-influenced chromaticism and expansive harmonic warmth. In Twilight, Sara Teasdale’s text evokes a deep sense of yearning and distance by repeating the words ‘calling, calling’. Rather than mimicking birdsong, the choir personifies the calling bird with a soaring but melancholy refrain. Overlapping cross-rhythms suggest conversation and tension between the voices, and the tragically inconclusive poetry is reflected by the choral texture fading, unresolved, to a single voice at the song’s close. The innocence and unbridled joy of Coleridge’s Answer to a child’s question provide a light-hearted conclusion to this set. With flamboyant rubato and exaggerated dynamics, the piece builds to a theatrical climax, before drawing the listener into the final line, ‘And my Love loves me!’ in whimsical unison. The set would suit a confident choir as a versatile concert feature. These pieces may be performed as a set in the order they are presented in this score, or individually.