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- Michael Blake Watkins
The Bird of Time (1979)
- Novello & Co Ltd (World)
Programme Note
Michael Blake Watkins: The Bird of Time
I have set poems spanning the 16th to the 20th centuries, all of which are concerned with the subject of Time. The simple settings explore the lyrical qualities of the tenor and oboe in both their solo and duo roles.
The piece is in seven continuous sections. The opening Prelude begins with the solo tenor declaiming a single verse from Edward Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyam. A short passage for the oboe leads into another duet using the sonnet In Time by the 16th Century poet, Giles Fletcher. The Postlude begins with the solo tenor echoing the opening passage of the piece and is followed by the oboe bringing the work to its distant conclusion.
The Bird of Time was commissioned by Musica Antica e Nuova with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain.
© Michael Blake Watkins
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly-and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
Edward Fitzgerald: Omar Khayyam
Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race,
Call on the leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet’s pace;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross;
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain.
For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb’d,
And last of all, thy greedy self consum’d,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual Kiss;
And joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When everything that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,
With truth, and peace, and love shall ever shine
About the supreme Throne
Of him, t’whose happy making sight alone,
When once our heav’nly-guided soul shall climb,
Then all this earthy grossness quit,
Attir’d with stars, we shall for ever sit,
Triumphing over death, and chance, and thee, O Time.
John Milton: On Time
there’s time for laughing and there’s time for crying-
for hoping for despair for peace for longing
-a time for growing and a time for dying:
a night for silence and a day for singing
but more than all (as all your more than eyes
tell me) there is a time for timelessness
© 1954 E. E. Cummings
In time the strong and stately turrets fall,
In time the rose and silver lilies die,
Ion time the monarchs captives are, and thrall,
In time the sea and rivers are made dry;
The hardest flint in time doth melt asunder;
Still-living fame in time doth fade away;
The mountains proud we see in time come under;
And earth, for age, we see in time decay.
The sun in time forgets for to retire
From out the East, where he has wont to rise;
The basest thoughts we see in time aspire,
And greedy minds in time do wealth despise.
Thus all, sweet fair, in time must have an end,
Except thy beauty, virtues, and thy friend.
Giles Fletcher (16th Century)
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter-and the Bird is on the wing.
Fitzgerald
I have set poems spanning the 16th to the 20th centuries, all of which are concerned with the subject of Time. The simple settings explore the lyrical qualities of the tenor and oboe in both their solo and duo roles.
The piece is in seven continuous sections. The opening Prelude begins with the solo tenor declaiming a single verse from Edward Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyam. A short passage for the oboe leads into another duet using the sonnet In Time by the 16th Century poet, Giles Fletcher. The Postlude begins with the solo tenor echoing the opening passage of the piece and is followed by the oboe bringing the work to its distant conclusion.
The Bird of Time was commissioned by Musica Antica e Nuova with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain.
© Michael Blake Watkins
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly-and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
Edward Fitzgerald: Omar Khayyam
Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race,
Call on the leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet’s pace;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross;
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain.
For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb’d,
And last of all, thy greedy self consum’d,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual Kiss;
And joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When everything that is sincerely good
And perfectly divine,
With truth, and peace, and love shall ever shine
About the supreme Throne
Of him, t’whose happy making sight alone,
When once our heav’nly-guided soul shall climb,
Then all this earthy grossness quit,
Attir’d with stars, we shall for ever sit,
Triumphing over death, and chance, and thee, O Time.
John Milton: On Time
there’s time for laughing and there’s time for crying-
for hoping for despair for peace for longing
-a time for growing and a time for dying:
a night for silence and a day for singing
but more than all (as all your more than eyes
tell me) there is a time for timelessness
© 1954 E. E. Cummings
In time the strong and stately turrets fall,
In time the rose and silver lilies die,
Ion time the monarchs captives are, and thrall,
In time the sea and rivers are made dry;
The hardest flint in time doth melt asunder;
Still-living fame in time doth fade away;
The mountains proud we see in time come under;
And earth, for age, we see in time decay.
The sun in time forgets for to retire
From out the East, where he has wont to rise;
The basest thoughts we see in time aspire,
And greedy minds in time do wealth despise.
Thus all, sweet fair, in time must have an end,
Except thy beauty, virtues, and thy friend.
Giles Fletcher (16th Century)
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter-and the Bird is on the wing.
Fitzgerald