• Sign In
  • ACDA.org
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
ChoralNet

ChoralNet

The professional networking site for the global online choral community.

  • Home
  • Blog
  • ACDA News
  • Events
  • Community
    • Announcements
    • Classifieds

You are here: Home / Off The Podium / Off The Podium: The Blue Bird

Off The Podium: The Blue Bird

November 17, 2020 by Walter Bitner Leave a Comment


Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, 1921

Although he is little recognized today, the English composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852 – 1924) was one of the most prominent musicians in the English-speaking world at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and he had considerable influence on the work of many composers and musicians whose work is better known.

His biography reads like that of any great composer: already in his teens Stanford was writing music feverishly, and his catalog included church music, secular songs, choral works, and orchestral works before he was awarded an organ scholarship at Queens’ College, Cambridge at the age of 17. By the time he was 30 he had been appointed professor of composition and conductor of the orchestra at London’s Royal College of Music, where a Who’s Who of English musicians passed through his tutelage: Stanford’s pupils included Frank Bridge, George Butterworth, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Herbert Howells, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and many others.

Sir Charles held many organist, orchestral and choral conducting posts, wrote prolifically in every genre, and was highly regarded as a composer by his contemporaries: his Third “Irish” Symphony was featured at the opening concert at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in 1888, and Mahler chose it for performances with the New York Philharmonic in 1911. Along with his friend and colleague C. Hubert H. Parry, Stanford championed the music of Brahms and brought it to the English-speaking world: Stanford arranged for the English premieres of Brahms’ First Symphony, Neue Liebeslieder waltzes, Alto Rhapsody, and other works, and was commissioned to compose for Joachim, Brahms’ champion on the continent.

But all that was a long time ago, and Stanford’s reputation has been eclipsed by others now. It was through his exquisite miniature The Blue Bird for chamber choir and soprano soloist that I first was introduced to his music.

Blue in Blue

The Blue Bird is a setting of a poem by the English novelist and poet Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861 – 1907). Coleridge originally published the poem anonymously in French as L’Oiseau Bleu in 1897; when she died suddenly from appendicitis at 45, she left behind unpublished manuscripts and many poems, which were brought out posthumously under her own name in 1908. Coleridge had been a significant presence in the cultural world of Stanford’s London – her father founded the London Bach Choir and she had many prominent literary friends. Sir Charles was apparently deeply affected by her death, and set eight of her poems in choral settings. The Blue Bird was composed in 1910.

The lake lay blue below the hill.

O’er it, as I looked, there flew

Across the waters, cold and still,

A bird whose wings were palest blue.

The sky above was blue at last,

The sky beneath me blue in blue.

A moment, ere the bird had passed,

It caught his image as he flew.

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, 1883

Coleridge’s poem captures a single moment in two quatrains, in the manner of a Japanese haiku. There is nothing extraneous; the poem’s great beauty lies in its direct expression of natural beauty and its power to evoke a strong impression in the imagination of the reader (and for the song of course, the singers and listeners). The poet carefully identifies the subject of the poem as “I” so that as each of us reads or hears it, we see this image in our mind’s eye as if we ourselves are the witness of the event.

In Stanford’s setting, the choir’s opening chords provide a cool description of the poem’s setting: The lake lay blue below the hill, and over this, the soprano soloist flies in pianissimo with the single word blue. For a scarce four minutes, this bird flies by: the soprano’s melody swoops gracefully, rising and falling above the choir, sometimes blending with what her peers are singing, sometimes distinctly climbing high above. Blue in blue. There is no final cadence: this bird simply flies off into the distance on the fifth of a minor seventh chord, leaving the scene without resolving.

It is pure impressionism.

The Blue Bird for high school choir

I don’t remember when I first heard The Blue Bird, but its masterful expression of serenity and its potential as a vehicle for a choir with a good soprano soloist to have a deep musical experience and make a powerful impression on audience and singers alike caught my imagination. When I found myself directing just such a choir at Nashville School of the Arts about a decade ago, I hunted down a copy of the score.

I was very surprised to find that Stanford had written it in G flat Major. Six flats!

Now I don’t know about your high school choir, but most of my students learned to read music in my choir rehearsals beginning in ninth grade. Even in my most advanced ensembles, most singers only had two or three years of singing from written notation under their belts. All of my students marked their music in solfège, and we sang on syllables until notes and rhythms were mastered, at least. Six flats were a lot to navigate for my young singers and would have created obstacles easily avoided by singing in a simpler key.

So I did the obvious thing and transposed it up a half step: we learned it in G Major, then put it back down to G flat once pitches were secure and the choir didn’t need the piano to find their notes any more. 

Here it is! I hope you get a chance to do this one with your group: you’ll be glad you did.

©2020 Walter Bitner

Walter Bitner is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, conductor, and teacher, and serves as Director of Education & Community Engagement for the Richmond Symphony and the Richmond Symphony School of Music in Richmond, Virginia. His column Off The Podium is featured in Choral Director magazine, and he writes about music and education on his website Off The Podium at walterbitner.com.


Filed Under: Off The Podium Tagged With: Off The Podium, Walter Bitner

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

  • ACDA.org
  • The ChoralNet Daily Newsletter

Advertise on ChoralNet

On This Day
August 12

The Beethoven Monument was unveiled in Bonn, Germany, on this day in 1845 in recognition of the composer’s birthday.

Would you like to submit a blog post for consideration?

Are you interested in becoming a regular ChoralNet blogger? Please contact ACDA Director of Membership & Communications Sundra Flansburg at .

RSS JW Pepper

  • Shop Disney’s Encanto Sheet Music
  • How to Prepare for Your First Concert
  • How to Establish Classroom Routines and Why
  • 5 Things to Consider When Buying Color Guard Equipment
  • PYO Music Institute Presents the 9th Annual Ovation Award in Partnership with J.W. Pepper, Jacobs Music, and WRTI 90.1 FM
  • 10 Easy-To-Learn Funky Tunes for the Stands
  • Zoom F3 Field Recorder Review: The Easiest Way to Get Pro Audio for Your Music Ensembles
  • J.W. Pepper Names Eric King as New Chief Financial Officer
  • The Music Teachers’ Guide to Recording an Ensemble: The Samson C02 Mics Review
  • The Zoom Q8n-4K Handy Video Recorder Review

RSS NAfME

  • The Capacity to Collaborate
  • U.S. House Appropriations Committee Labor-HHS-Education Bill: Key Programs of Interest to Music Education Advocates
  • The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act: Providing for Safer Schools
  • Elevate Your Online Music Lessons
  • Ron Meers and John Stroube Honored as 2022 Lowell Mason Fellows
  • Believe in the Power of Great Teachers
  • NAfME Collegiate Chat: “Back to School: Starting Off on the Right Foot!”
  • NAfME Awards Shannon Kelly Kane Scholarships to Kelsey Zetzl of Butler University and Hannah Combs of Oakland University
  • 2022 African American Music Appreciation Month Resolution
  • NAfME Awards Four Collegiate Members and Seven Institutions’ Collegiate Chapters for Excellence and Achievement

Footer

Connect with us!

  • Home
  • About
  • Help
  • Contact Us
  • ACDA.org

Recent Blogs

  • Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics: Auditions
  • Raise Your Voice: First Steps for the Choir Year
  • Midweek Meditation: the Power of the Pause
  • An Interview with Duncan Tuomi, the Winner of the 2021 Raymond W. Brock Memorial Student Composition Competition
  • 7 Reasons Why Ordering Most Choral Music Is Ridiculous

American Choral Directors Association

PO Box 1705
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
73101-1705

© 2022 American Choral Directors Association. All rights reserved.
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy