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Five Yeats Songs Op. 14 for low voice and piano (1982)
I The Lake Isle of Innisfree
II The Sorrow of Love (original version)
III Who Goes with Fergus?
IV A Cradle Song
V The Ballad of Father Gilligan
These Yeats poems, all taken from The Rose (1893), were set for the composer to sing himself, and they exist in another version for low voice and string quartet (Op.14a). They formed part of a search for an accessible, lyrical style, something with which the composer was much preoccupied at this time. The result, here, is a style in which triadic harmonies, sometimes unusually juxtaposed, are often placed against unexpected melodic configurations. The fifth song, incidentally, should be performed without parody, but with a gentle, self-conscious awareness of its sentimentality.