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Bird Raptures
- 17 Sep 2025
- For mixed choir (SATB divisi) a cappella
- Composed by Lucy Walker
- Suitable for intermediate and advanced choirs
- Published by Boosey & Hawkes
Composed for St Martin’s Voices in spring 2025, Lucy Walker’s Bird Raptures draws stylistic inspiration from twentieth-century partsong and was written for her debut album on Resonus Classics (RES10361).
A set of three pieces, the collection explores bird-themed poetry through texts by Christina Rossetti, Sara Teasdale, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It opens with The Nightingale, setting Rossetti’s poem Bird Raptures as an invented folksong that features sinewy, jazz-influenced chromaticism and expansive harmonic warmth.
Twilight, set to Teasdale’s text, evokes a deep sense of yearning and distance. Overlapping cross-rhythms create tension between the voices, and the choral texture fades to a single line at the close, mirroring the poem’s ambiguity and unresolved atmosphere.
The set concludes with Answer to a Child’s Question, where Coleridge’s playful verse inspires a light-hearted finale. Marked by expressive rubato and dramatic dynamic contrasts, the piece builds to a spirited climax before resolving in whimsical unison.
Bird Raptures may be performed as a complete set or as individual pieces and is suitable for intermediate and advanced choirs seeking a versatile addition to their concert repertoire.
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