A Silver Sea
Readings by Julian Glover and Eleanor Tomlinson range from a plaque on Rockall and Under Milkwood to the Cornish coast. The music includes Britten, Ethel Smyth and Julie Fowlis.
"I must down to the seas again" - the opening words of John Masefield's poem Sea Fever published in 1902. Today's Words and Music follows his suggestion, with readings by Julian Glover and Eleanor Tomlinson, which range from Gerard Manley Hopkins's poem Wreck of the Deutschland, a ship which foundered off the Kent coast in 1875 and Matthew Arnold's On Dover Beach, to Joseph Conrad's autobiographical book The Mirror of the Sea, to Kathleen Jamie's poem The Glass-hulled Boat. The music includes Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave, Flanders and Swann's Rockall, folk tunes by Julie Fowlis and Debussy's La Mer, which the composer wrote whilst staying at Eastbourne. The ±«Óãtv Radio 3 Breakfast programme is currently asking listeners for suggestions of music inspired by the coastline of Britain to play each morning.
Producer: Tom Alban
Last on
Music Played
Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes
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00:00John Ireland
Sea Fever
Performer: Thomas Allen, Roger Vignoles.- Hyperion 66165.
- Tr1.
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Frances Fyfield
From the novel ‘Gold Digger’ read by Eleanor Tomlinson
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00:01Claude Debussy
La Mer - II Jeux De Vagues
Performer: Philharmonia Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas.- CBS Records MDK 44645.
- Tr2.
John Keats
From the poem ‘On the Sea’ - read by Julian Glover
Gerard Manley Hopkins
From ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’ - read by Julian Glover and Eleanor Tomlinson
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00:05Benjamin Britten
Four Sea Interludes, Op.33a: IV. Storm
Performer: London Symphony Orchestra, Steuart Bedford.- Naxos.
- Tr3.
Joseph Conrad
From ‘The Mirror of the Sea’ - Memories and Impressions, read by Julian Glover.
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00:10Benjamin Britten
Four Sea Interludes, Op.33a: II. Sunday Morning
Performer: London Symphony Orchestra, Steuart Bedford.- Naxos.
- Tr2.
Inshore Waters - Part 1/4
An anti-clockwise list of British Inshore waters read by Eleanor Tomlinson and Julian Glover
Christina Rossetti
Poem ‘By the Sea’ read by Eleanor Tomlinson
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00:14Scottish Pipe tune arr. Julie Fowlis
Tha mo ghaol air aird aÂ’ chuain / My LoveÂ’s on the High Seas
Performer: Julie Fowlis.- SKYE SKYECD33.
- Tr2.
My LoveÂ’s on the High Seas
Verses 1 & 4 of My Love’s on the High Seas by Julie Fowlis read by Eleanor Tomlinson.
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00:17Peter Maxwell Davies
Farewell to Stromness
Performer: Peter Maxwell Davies.- Unicorn-Kanchana DKP(CD)9070.
- Tr13.
Slate, Sea and Sky
Poem by Norman Bissell read by Julian Glover
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00:20Michael Tippett
Over the Sea to Skye - from Choral Images
Performer: ±«Óãtv Singers - 1956 Premier.- Signum Classics SIGCD092.
- Tr11.
Kathleen Jamie - ‘The Glass’hulled Boat’
Poem by Kathleen Jamie read by Eleanor Tomlinson
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00:24Felix Mendelssohn
Overture ‘The Hebrides’ or Fingal’s Cave
Performer: LÂ’Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Charles Dutoit.- DECCA 417 541-2.
- Tr6.
Inshore Waters - Part 2/4
An anti-clockwise list of British Inshore waters read by Eleanor Tomlinson and Julian Glover
Nursery Rhyme - A Sailor went to sea, sea, sea!
Nursery Rhyme read by Julian Glover and Eleanor Tomlinson.
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00:34Michael Flanders and Donald Swann
Rockall - Verse 1
Performer: The King’s Singers.- EMI EMC 3196.
- Tr4.
Writing on a Plaque on the Island of Rockall
Plaque read by Eleanor Tomlinson
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00:35Michael Flanders and Donald Swann
Rockall - Verse 2
Performer: The King’s Singers.- EMI EMC 3196.
- Tr4.
Comment by Lord Kennet in 1971
Read by Julian Glover
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00:36Folk
Ròin is MÃolta Móra (Seals and Whales)
Performer: Mary Ann Kennedy, Ruth Keggin, Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin.- Watercolour Music WCMCD059.
- Tr2.
Inshore Waters - Part 3/4
An anti-clockwise list of British Inshore waters read by Eleanor Tomlinson and Julian Glover
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00:38Francis Pott
Sonata for Viola and Piano (Tooryn Vannin - The Towers of Man)
Performer: Yuko Inoue, Francis Pott.- EM Records EMR CD028.
- 3.
Norman Nicholson - ‘Seat to the West’
Poem by Norman Nicholson read by Julian Glover.
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00:46Mansell Thomas,
Y Môr'/ The Sea
Performer: Bryn Terfel, Annette Bryn Parri.- Sain SCD9099.
- Tr8.
Night and Morning by R.S.Thomas
Poem read by Eleanor Tomlinson
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00:48John Rutter
Suite for Strings - O Waly, Waly
Performer: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, John Rutter.- Universal Classics.
- Tr9.
Dylan Thomas - Under Milkwood
Extract with Captain Cat and Rosie Probert, read by EleanorTomlinson and Julian Glover.
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00:53Charles Villiers Stanford
Songs of the Sea, Op.91 No 4 ±«Óãtvward Bound
Performer: Gerarld Finley, ±«Óãtv National Chorus of Wales, ±«Óãtv National Orchestra of Wales, Richard Hickox..- Chandos.
- Tr15.
Reasons at Trefusis Point by Julian May
Poem read by Eleanor Tomlinson
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01:01Ethel Smyth
Overture ‘The Wreckers’
Performer: Scottish National Orchestra, Sir Alexander Gibson.- EMI.
- Tr1.
Inshore Waters - Part 4/4
An anti-clockwise list of British Inshore waters read by Eleanor Tomlinson and Julian Glover.
From ‘Moonfleet’ by J.Meade Falkner
Extract from Chapter 18 ‘In the Bay’
From ‘On Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold
Extract from Poem read by Eleanor Tomlinson.
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01:08Henry Wood
From ‘Fantasia on British Sea Songs’
Performer: ±«Óãtv Symphony Orchestra, James Loughran.- ±«Óãtv Rado Classics 1565691912.
- Tr17.
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01:10Folk song
Blow the Wind Southerly, British Songs
Performer: Kathleen Ferrier.- DECCA.
- Tr3.
From ‘Sea Fever’ by John Masefield
Extract ‘Sea Fever’ read by Julian Glover and Eleanor Tomlinson.
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01:13John Ireland
Sea Fever
Performer: Thomas Allen, Roger Vignoles.- Hyperion 66165.
- Tr1.
A Silver Sea or a circumnavigation of British inshore waters from Deal to Dover by way of the Highlands and Islands.
The seas that surround the British Isles have been a rich inspiration for composers and writers alike. The variation in their moods from stormy to dazzling calm often provide ways into, or backdrop setting for, reflection and story.Â
The idea of a journey or voyage isn’t a new one for ‘Words and Music’. If this edition differs it is in the precision of the nautical ambition, to chart and describe a particular geographical route.
It begins, after John Masefield and John Ireland have invited us to take to the water, with a feisty Frances Fyfield heroine being lured to the sea to swim. Her exhilaration and ‘freedom to scream’ is picked up by Debussy in the second movement of La Mer ‘Jeux De Vagues’ which he finished while staying at Eastbourne.  John Keats’ invitation to ‘feast on the Sea’ isn’t map specific but now, with the accompaniment of Benjamin Britten’s Storm from his Sea Interludes we regain our course finding ourselves ‘Dead to the Kentish Knock’ in Gerard Manley Hopkins dramatic sprung rhythm verse evocation of the ‘Wreck of the Deutschland’. From playful waves to powerful, hurling force, this is the fickle sea that surrounds us and there’s no-one who captures that shift and change better than Britten.
 Away from wreck and ravage Joseph Conrad takes us into his world of onboard life in a passage from his autobiographical work ‘The Mirror of the Sea’.  Conrad finds in the sea, and perhaps more importantly in the ship, the attraction of routine picked up again by another of Britten’s Sea Interludes, this time ‘Sunday Morning’.
 To help navigation I’ve used an anti-clockwise list of the Inshore Sea areas starting from North Foreland and ending the journey with Selsey Bill and North Foreland once again. Now we’re in the North Sea and Christina Rossetti ponders the ‘sheer miracles of loveliness’ which include, in a very Rossetti twist, salt. It was tempting to dwell at the mouth of the Tyne or Tees, Wear or Tweed but our next music is a Scottish folksong by Julie Fowlis. Providing a limited translation of the Gaelic breaks all sorts of rules but I wanted to include some of the gentle imagery as well as indulging in the beauty and clarity of the voice and song.
 Northward we go to the Isles beginning with Orkney and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies playing his own Farewell to Stromness. I’ve heard it described as the portrait of the ferry and it certainly has a wonderful sense of effort and steady sea-bound progress while never losing its lilt.  Norman Bissell’s ‘Slate, Sea and Sky’ is as much and as little as needs to be said of these places on the rim of the world where ‘light changes everything’.
 Hard a port and round to Sir Michael Tippett’s arrangement of ‘Over the Sea to Skye’. The composer never lets us forget that a Sea journey is rarely tranquil, but Kathleen Jamie’s ‘The Glass-hulled Boat’ is a moment of calm looking deep and directly down at the lost internal organs that are jellyfish.
 We’re heading south now although Mendelssohn was probably heading north on his journey to Staffa and Fingal’s Cave. The manuscript of this music is held in the Bodleian Library along with records he took while on his journey to Scotland. They suggest that the main theme was inspired more by the boat taking him than the Cave and causeway itself.
 Those of a nautical bent will be agonisingly aware that we veer horribly off course in heading, at this point, for Rockall. I couldn’t resist.  Here it is celebrated in all its Gannet-infested splendour by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann with the help of the King’s Singers. The reading is from a Plaque fixed to the rock and the grim observation of this desolate place was made by Lord Kennet.
 Back we come, squeezing between the coast of Northern Ireland and Cumbria, hearing, in a brand new recording, the voices of ‘Seals and Whales’ by Mary Ann Kennedy, Ruth Keggin, Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin. The song is new but emerges from the Scots Gaelic tradition and is intended to be a haunting call from the Sea by those creatures threatened most by man.
 The Isle of Man provides another freshly minted piece, this time from the composer Francis Pott. It’s the third movement of his Viola Sonata played here by the composer himself and Yuko Inoue. The first two movements were inspired by two towers on the Island but this, the last, in the words of the composer himself, ‘admits of no specific connection to a single place, and accordingly has no subtitle; but its primary content suggested itself during an afternoon walk in perfect weather to the coastal point opposite the so-called Calf of Man.’ Surely the feverish rhythms and syncopations speak of wind, sea and spray.
Over on the Cumbrian mainland Norman Nicholson looks out at the dazzle of the sea as the sun sets and wishes it to stay with him in the dark. And then we’re down to the Welsh coast and a young Bryn Terfel singing ‘Y Mor’ by Mansell Thomas, the reflections of a beachcomber and observer of the seas ‘far horizons’.
 ‘Night and Morning’ by R.S.Thomas once again has the sea moving from one tempest torn extreme to sun slumbering other. The water, as the following folksong tells us, is wide and things tend not to remain as stable as we might wish.  The version of ‘O Waly, Waly’ here is by John Rutter from his Suite for Strings.
 And so to the seas sailed by blind Captain Cat, the lynchpin of Dylan Thomas’ Llareggub town in Under Milk Wood. Here he’s beguiled by his one true love, Rosie Probert, who wants him to remember that she saw the very best of him. For all its Welshness I invited Eleanor, fresh from her role as Demelza Carne in Poldark, to give her Rosie a Cornish accent, the better to entice Captain Cat to remember and then forget.Â
 The turn is now homeward and ‘±«Óãtvward Bound’ from Charles Villiers Stanford’s songs of the Sea captures that mood to perfection.
 ‘Reasons at Trefusis Point’ brings us to the Cornish coast and Julian May, now a ±«Óãtv Radio Producer, playfully remembers his young self at the water’s edge and a brief confusion between the creatures of the land and the deep, ending with the beautiful image of a seal bounding away like a Labrador.
The Cornish theme continues with Ethel Smyth’s overture to her opera ‘The Wreckers’. Again the sea is everywhere in its huge variety and her writing and subject invites the second shipwreck of our voyage, this time from the children’s novel ‘Moonfleet’.
 Rather than fetching up on Moonfleet beach, it’s to Dover we go and the words of Matthew Arnold hearing in the sea the steady and eternal notes of sadness. The Proms very own humming chorus from Sir Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea Songs and the very best of Kathleen Ferrier calling for a Southerly wind bring us to shore and an echo and end of John Masefield’s Sea Fever. The Fever has now worked itself out and the long, and I hope enjoyable, circumnavigational trick is over.
 Tom Alban
Broadcasts
- Sun 22 Mar 2015 17:30±«Óãtv Radio 3
- Sun 27 Jun 2021 17:30±«Óãtv Radio 3
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