We'll to the Woods No More (John Ireland)
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We'll to the Woods No More is a song cycle for voice and piano composed in 1928 by John Ireland. It consists of settings of two poems by A. E. Housman (1859{{ndash}}1936) and a concluding piece for solo piano named after a third.{{cite web
|url=http://www.johnirelandtrust.org/ttoy.htm
|website=The John Ireland Trust
|title=List of works – T to Y
|accessdate=29 April 2015 }}
A performance takes about 8 minutes. The poems are:{{cite web
|url=http://www.lieder.net/lieder/assemble_texts.html?SongCycleId=2685
|website=recmusic.org
|title= We'll to the woods no more: Song Cycle by John (Nicholson) Ireland (1879{{ndash}}1962)
|accessdate=29 April 2015 }}
- "We'll to the Woods No More" (Last Poems (1922), unnumbered preface)
- "In Boyhood" ("When I would muse in boyhood"; Last Poems, No. XXXII)
- "Spring Will Not Wait" ("'Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town"; A Shropshire Lad (1896), No. XXXIX)
John France has written, "The mood of this cycle is typically a deep sense of the fragility of life, love and friendship that so influenced both men."{{cite web
|url=http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2007/Sept07/Ireland_SRCD2261.htm
|website=musicweb-international.com
|title=John Ireland (1879{{ndash}}1972): The Songs
|last=France
|first=John
|accessdate=29 April 2015 }} Rob Barnett has written of the piano piece "Spring Will Not Wait" that, "It is in Ireland’s typically elusive, wanderingly ambivalent tonal palette."{{cite web
|url=http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2007/Aug07/Ireland_songs_SRCD2261.htm
|website=musicweb-international.com
|title=John Ireland (1879{{ndash}}1972): The Songs
|last=Barnett
|first=Rob
|accessdate=29 April 2015 }}
References
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Category:Song cycles by John Ireland
Category:Musical settings of poems by A. E. Housman
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