A Blog of Two Halves

Voice and Verse (a celebration of poetry in song). Collegium Musicum of London. St James Sussex Gardens. Saturday 11 July 2026.

Links between classical music and football are relatively few. Pavarotti was a goal-keeper in his younger days. Shirley J. Thompson (‘Football Concerto’) and Michael Nyman (‘The Final Score’) have written soccer-based pieces, and Elgar (who was a huge Wolverhampton Wanderers fan apparently) composed what is thought to be the first football anthem: ‘He banged the leather for goal’, a very brief setting of a line from an 1898 newspaper match report celebrating the skill of Wolves’ striker Billy Malpass (an ironic name for a footballer when you think about it…). Football also features in A.E. Housman’s poem ‘Is My Team Ploughing?’ set to music by George Butterworth. In this conversation between two friends, one alive and one dead, the dead man asks:

‘Is football playing

Along the river shore,   

With lads to chase the leather,

Now I stand up no more?

His friend replies

‘Ay the ball is flying,

The lads play heart and soul,

The goal stands up, the keeper

Stands up to keep the goal.’

The final two lines do not show Housman at his finest, and Vaughan Williams disliked them so much that when he set the poem in his cycle ‘On Wenlock Edge’, he cut out the reference to football altogether. Housman, famously touchy, was predictably outraged.

Be that as it may, some very famous pieces of English choral music are now indelibly linked in my mind with England’s World Cup campaign of 2026 because, on Saturday 11^th July tenor son Sam and his choir Collegium Musicum of London gave a concert at St James’ Church Sussex Gardens, which finished in good time for singers and audience to hurry home, or seek the nearest pub, to watch England play Norway in the aforementioned competition’s quarter final.

Musical matters first. The programme for this concert was exceptional, with some of the greatest pieces of English vocal and choral music in the repertoire. A special delight for me was that the poetry set was of the very highest quality, featuring some of the finest poems in the English language.

We began with two of Vaughan Williams’ ‘Five Mystical Songs’, ‘Easter’ and ‘Love Bade Me Welcome’. These marvellous songs, so well known, but always fresh and profoundly moving, illuminate the many felicities of George Herbert’s sublime poetry. I make no apology for quoting both texts in full:

Easter

Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise

Without delays,

Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise

With him mayst rise:

That, as his death calcined thee to dust,

His life may make thee gold, and much more just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part

With all thy art.

The cross taught all wood to resound his name,

Who bore the same.

His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key

Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song

Pleasant and long:

Or since all music is but three parts vied

And multiplied;

O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,

And make up our defects with his sweet art.

The extended musical/crucifixion metaphors and word play of stanzas two and three remind us that Herbert was a musician, (he played the viol), as well as being a clergyman and theologian.

Love Bade Me Welcome

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back

                              Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

                             From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

                             If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:

                             Love said, You shall be he.

I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,

                             I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

                             Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame

                             Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

                             My dear, then I will serve.

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:

                             So I did sit and eat.

Here we see God, as the ‘infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering thing’ described by T.S. Eliot. Infinitely gentle but not to be denied, God makes it clear that the ‘unkind, ungrateful’ must sit and eat his meat at the Communion altar.

Richard Latham was the light voiced, eloquent baritone soloist and Richard Pearce the impeccable accompanist (as indeed, he was throughout, both as pianist and organist). CML provided exemplary choral support: ringing in forte, hushed and devout in pianissimo.

William Henry Harris’ ‘Bring us O Lord God’ sets words from a sermon by Herbert’s contemporary Metaphysical John Donne. This is a rich, serious setting of rich and serious words

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening, into the house and gate of heaven, to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession; no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity; in the habitations of thy glory and dominion world without end. Amen.

Typically, Donne surprises us by calling death an ‘awakening’ rather than eternal rest, final sleep, or similar. It is a state of perfect balance, ‘one equal music’ and ‘one equal possession’. Without wishing to stretch the analogy too far CML gave a perfectly balanced performance which expanded wonderfully in St James’ warm acoustic.

Richard Latham returned to deliver sensitive performances of three songs from Roger Quilter’s song cycle ‘To Julia’. Settings of Robert Herrick, these songs deserve to be better known. ‘To Daisies’ in particular, is a minor masterpiece:

To Daisies, not to Shut so Soon

Shut not so soon; the dull-eyed night

Has not as yet begun

To make a seizure on the light,

Or to seal up the sun.

No marigolds yet closed are;

No shadows great appear;

Nor doth the early shepherds' star

Shine like a spangle here.

Stay but till my Julia close

Her life-begetting eye,

And let the whole world then dispose

Itself to live or die.

John Tavener’s ‘The Lamb’ is very well known, and quite rightly as it is a work of genius. His setting of ‘The Tiger’ (both poems by William Blake, of course) is far less well known and, again, quite rightly as it doesn’t really work. In the light of this CML’s indefatigable conductor Greg Morris had the happy notion of performing a setting of ‘Tyger, Tyger’ by contemporary British composer Hannah Conway. Not content with setting one of the greatest poems in the English language Conway also uses lines from the Holy Quran, the Catholic Requiem Mass and references the Welsh legend of Dinas Emrys, wishing, as she puts it, ‘to give the Blake a new dimension and an altered/universal ancient resonance’. This sentiment provoked a frisson of annoyance in a superannuated English teacher who feels Blake’s poem has been doing perfectly well without additional dimensions or resonances (ancient or otherwise). Putting that aside, Conway’s setting is wonderfully effective, and the climax of the piece is really thrilling. I look forward to getting to know and writing about more of her work. CML were certainly equal to the considerable demands of the piece (it was commissioned by the BBC Singers).

The Lamb

Little Lamb who made thee 

         Dost thou know who made thee 

Gave thee life & bid thee feed. 

By the stream & o'er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight,

Softest clothing wooly bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice! 

         Little Lamb who made thee 

         Dost thou know who made thee 

         Little Lamb I'll tell thee,

         Little Lamb I'll tell thee!

He is called by thy name,

For he calls himself a Lamb: 

He is meek & he is mild, 

He became a little child: 

I a child & thou a lamb, 

We are called by his name.

         Little Lamb God bless thee. 

         Little Lamb God bless thee.

The Tiger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And water'd heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?D

id he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The first half closed with Gerald Finzi’s very substantial anthem ‘Lo the full, final sacrifice’, setting an amalgamation of parts of two poems by Richard Crashaw, which are themselves translations of Latin hymns by Thomas Aquinas. The work was one of many commissioned by the Revd Walter Hussey for his church in Northampton. Crashaw was one of the later Metaphysicals but his work shows the influence of the Baroque poets of Spain and Portugal. Outlandish sanguinary imagery looms large here as it does in much of his work

O soft self-wounding Pelican!

Whose breast weeps Balm for wounded man.

All this way bend thy benign flood

To a bleeding Heart that gasps for blood.

That blood, whose least drops sovereign be

To wash my worlds of sins from me.

Finzi’s setting is one of his most profound inspirations and drew another impressive performance from CML.

The second half of the concert began with probably the most substantial work on offer, Britten’s Hymn to St Cecilia, setting words by W.H. Auden. Greg Morris, proving himself a man of parts in his erudite programme notes, mentions the complex relationship between musician and poet (Auden considered himself Britten’s intellectual superior and was distinctly patronising when he pointed out what he saw as Britten’s shortcomings as a composer). This work represents the last collaboration between Britten and Auden; in Morris’s view:

 ‘ although on one level the poem is a paean to the patron saint of music – and Britten was born on her feast day, 22 November – it is also possible to read the text as a kind of cryptic manifesto of the sort of composer Auden thought Britten should become … For all the sensitivity of Britten’s setting of the dense imagery of Auden’s text, full of sparkling creativity and ravishing harmony, the work has a musical integrity that seems to stand somewhat apart from the text -  perhaps an ironic statement of independence on the composer’s part in what would prove to be his last setting of words by Auden? Or simply a response, conscious or otherwise, to the ambiguity of Auden’s poem?’

This is thought provoking, but I think it over-complicates an already challenging work. Britten was very honest about his response to poetry: it was instinctive rather than academic or intellectual and in this case he responds with music that illuminates the changing moods of Auden’s poem rather than attempting to clarify what the words mean. By and large, once past the opening incantation to St Cecilia, the words don’t mean anything – they just exist in their own sublime state, creating a mood or impression, and Britten reflects this is music sparkling with wit and creative exuberance. As Robert Frost said ‘a poem should not mean but be…’, and the same might be true of music in general… Having said that, my wife and I turned to each other during the performance and mouthed along with the lines: ‘I shall never be different. Love me…’ Anyway – here is the poem.

 I.

In a garden shady this holy lady

With reverent cadence and subtle psalm,

Like a black swan as death came on

Poured forth her song in perfect calm:

And by ocean's margin this innocent virgin

Constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer,

And notes tremendous from her great engine

Thundered out on the Roman air.

 Blonde Aphrodite rose up excited,

Moved to delight by the melody,

White as an orchid she rode quite naked

In an oyster shell on top of the sea;

At sounds so entrancing the angels dancing

Came out of their trance into time again,

And around the wicked in Hell's abysses

The huge flame flickered and eased their pain.

 Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions

To all musicians, appear and inspire:

Translated Daughter, come down and startle

Composing mortals with immortal fire.

 II.

I cannot grow;

I have no shadow

To run away from,

I only play.

I cannot err;

There is no creature

Whom I belong to,

Whom I could wrong.

 I am defeat

When it knows it

Can now do nothing

By suffering.

 All you lived through,

Dancing because you

No longer need it

For any deed.

 I shall never be Different.

Love me.

 Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions

To all musicians, appear and inspire:

Translated Daughter, come down and startle

Composing mortals with immortal fire.

 III.

O ear whose creatures cannot wish to fall,

O calm of spaces unafraid of weight,

Where Sorrow is herself, forgetting all

The gaucheness of her adolescent state,

Where Hope within the altogether strange

From every outworn image is released,

And Dread born whole and normal like a beast

Into a world of truths that never change:

Restore our fallen day; O re-arrange.

 O dear white children casual as birds,

Playing among the ruined languages,

So small beside their large confusing words,

So gay against the greater silences

Of dreadful things you did: O hang the head,

Impetuous child with the tremendous brain,

O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain,

Lost innocence who wished your lover dead,

Weep for the lives your wishes never led.

 O cry created as the bow of sin

Is drawn across our trembling violin.

O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain.

O law drummed out by hearts against the still

Long winter of our intellectual will.

That what has been may never be again.

O flute that throbs with the thanksgiving breath

Of convalescents on the shores of death.

O bless the freedom that you never chose.

O trumpets that unguarded children blow

About the fortress of their inner foe.

O wear your tribulation like a rose.

 Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions

To all musicians, appear and inspire:

Translated Daughter, come down and startle

Composing mortals with immortal fire.

After such a lengthy preamble it might seem unfair to spend a comparatively brief time on the actual CML performance. Suffice to say it was beautifully achieved, reflecting huge credit on all concerned. Special shout-outs to the sterling soloists from the choir: Verity Algar, Clare Arthurs, Rachel Spink, Sam Butler, and Anthony Phillips.

Vaughan Williams’ ‘Three Shakespeare Songs’ is a late and richly rewarding work. ‘Full Fathom Five’ is appropriately ‘rich and strange’, ‘The Cloud Capp’d Towers’ is ‘gorgeous’ and ‘solemn’ like the palaces and temples it describes, while ‘Over Hill, Over Dale’ is simply mercurial. More excellent performances from CML with second basses particularly impressive in the second piece.

Full fathom five thy father lies,

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Ding-dong.

Hark! now I hear them, - ding-dong bell.

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind: We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

Over hill, over dale,

  Thorough bush, thorough briar,

Over park, over pale,

  Thorough flood, thorough fire

I do wander everywhere.

Swifter than the moon's sphere;

And I serve the fairy queen,

To dew her orbs upon the green.

The cowslips tall her pensioners be;

In their gold coats spots you see;

Those be rubies, fairy favours,

In those freckles live their savours:

I must go seek some dew-drops here,

And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

The concert concluded with one of the first choral pieces I sang (aged about 14, nearly sixty years ago). Elgar described Parry’s ‘Blest Pair of Sirens’ as ‘one of the noblest works of man’, and who am I to argue? At the end of a formidable evening’s work, CML attacked this monumental setting of Milton with relish, and the result was splendid.

Blest pair of sirens, pledges of heavens joy,

Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,

Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ

Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce,

And to our high-raised phantasy present

That undisturbed song of pure consent,

Ay sung before the sapphire-coloured throne

To Him that sits thereon,

With saintly shout and solemn jubilee;

Where the bright seraphim, in burning row,

Their loud, uplifted angel-trumpets blow,

And the cherubic host, in thousand quires,

Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,

With those just spirits that wear victorious palms,

Hymns devout and holy psalms

Singing everlastingly:

That we on earth with undiscording voice May rightly answer that melodious noise;

As once we did, till disproportioned sin

Jarred against nature’s chime, and with harsh din

Broke the fair music that all creatures made

To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed

In perfect diapason, whilst they stood

In first obedience, and their state of good.

O may we soon again renew that song,

And keep in tune with heaven, till God ere long

To his celestial consort us unite,

To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light.

So, another fantastic CML concert. Once again, huge plaudits to Greg Morris, not least for excellent programme notes, and Laura Sandford and John Higgins for another superbly designed and presented programme booklet.

The concert was certainly good enough to merit an encore but other matters were looming on the horizon; I noticed Greg Morris making a particularly smart get away because he, like many of us wanted to catch the start of

THE FOOTBALL

I know very little about football so shall confine my brief remarks on musical and general artistic matters that came to mind as we listened (to the first half on the radio in our car going home) and watched (second half on the Telly at home).

The ‘singing’ of the National Anthems was interesting. The Norwegians seemed not to try at all with theirs. The English had a go, but coordination was an issue and grasp of tune and text often precarious (‘God save our gracious Qwing…’). All in all, it was a relief to turn to the main event. Both head coaches, Ståle Solbakken for Norway and Thomas Tuchel for England were impressively uninhibited in their displays of emotion. They reminded me of Sir George Solti in ‘screaming skull’ mode. The Norwegian fans ‘Viking rowing’ display was pleasantly quirky, and considerably more impressive than England’s ‘both arms raised, looking towards heaven’ default position.  Norway’s star player, Erlan Haaland, had the looks and demeanour of a star Scandinavian bass such as Martti Talvela or Matti Salminen, while our own Harry Kane manifested the calm dignity of a footballing Roderick Williams. Jude Bellingham oozed Italian tenor febrile temperament (an impression reinforced by his clear displeasure at his coach’s highly critical post-match assessment of England’s performance).

In any event, a win is a win. The Norwegian goalkeeper was in tears, inconsolable after an error that gifted England their winning goal. An echo of ‘Hymn to St Cecilia’ came to mind: ‘O weep child weep. O weep away the stain…’

Stop Press!  England 1 Argentina 2

Don’t cry for me Argentina? I don’t suppose they will…