Songs Sacred and Profane
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Songs Sacred and Profane is a song cycle for voice and piano composed in 1929–31 by John Ireland (1879–1962).[1] (The John Ireland Trust gives a composition date of 1943, but appears to be in error unless the composer revised the work in that year.)[2] It consists of settings of six poems by various poets.[3]
A typical performance takes about 14 minutes. The songs are:[4]
- "The Advent" (Alice Meynell (1847–1922); "Meditation", from Preludes (1875))
- "Hymn for a Child" (Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893–1978))
- "My Fair" (Meynell)
- "The Salley Gardens" (W. B. Yeats (1865–1939); "An Old Song Re-Sung", from The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889))
- "The Soldier's Return" (Warner; from The Espalier (1925))
- "The Scapegoat" (Warner; from The Espalier)
