Throw a Heaven Around a Child
for baritone and piano (1979), or baritone and guitar (1983), or baritone and orchestra (1986)

Texts by Yeats, J. Wright, J Shaw Neilsen, T Connor

16 minutes

Throw a Heaven Around a Child, a song cycle of five songs for baritone and piano was composed in 1978 for Arthur Johnson and Bevan Crabtree. While in America on study leave in 1977, I befriended the English poet Tony Connor who wrote a poem signifying the initial awakening by his daughter Rebecca of her blossoming into early womanhood. As Tony asked me to set it to music I decided to use his poem as the central piece in this cycle which traces the development of a female child to the stage where she leaves home to seek an independent lifestyle. The remaining four poems are by W. B. Yeats, J. Shaw Neilson and J. Wright.

© 2001 Philip Bracanin