Now Springes the Spray!

Now Springes the Spray! uses three poems taken from the medieval period, each one chosen to reflect in some way the fecundity of nature. The first is the round ’Summer is icumen in’, which is found in the Oldhall Manuscript (c. 12C). I decided to keep something of the rhythmic feel of the original, the short and long of the medieval rhythmic modes. The second, title song, reflects the mood of the cycle as a whole – that of the blossoming of new life and the joys and pains of love. After a short piano link, the last song, ’I loved a child’, turns this hope and expectancy of joyous love to despair. Kenneth Hesketh