Paul Archibald Sounding Out

As I strolled through Dartington Hall’s Grade II listed gardens it occurred to me that gardens have played an role inspiring composers to write some of their finest music. Certainly the 26 acres of grounds at Dartington have given many composers, musicians, artists and sculptors plenty to think about so Phil Whelan and I have been looking at some of the music that have been inspired by gardens across the world

Claude Debussy
Gardens in the Rain from Estampes L100
Víkingur Ólafsson (piano)

Manuel de Falla
Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Movt 3: In the gardens of the Sierra de la Cordoba
Alicia di Laroccha (piano)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (conductor)

Traditional: Down By The Sally Gardens
The Cambridge Singers
City of London Sinfonia
John Rutter (conductor)

Percy Grainger
Country Gardens
Eastman Rochester Pops Orchestra
Frederick Fennell (conductor)

Claude Debussy (1862-1918) developed a highly original system of harmony that expressed the ideals of the Impressionist painters and writers of his time. Gardens In the Rain, a movement from Estampes L.100, is a composition for solo piano finished in 1903, and describes a garden in the Normandy Town of Orbec during an extremely violent rainstorm.

Manuel de Falla, (1876 -1946) is the most distinguished Spanish composer of the early 20th century and his music represents the spirit of Spain at its purest. Composed in 1916, Nights in the Gardens of Spain is a set of nocturnes for piano and orchestra, evoking the Andalusian atmosphere through erotic and suggestive orchestration. The piece premiered in 1916, the final movement In the Gardens of the Sierra de Córdoba recalls the Moorish-influenced gardens near ancient Córdoba. Many of the rhythms derive from the folk music of Andalusia where de Falla was born.

Down by the Salley Gardens is a poem by WB Yeats published in in 1889. The verse was subsequently set to music by Herbert Hughes to the traditional air The Maids of Mourne Shore in 1909. Benjamin Britten published a setting of the poem in 1943, using the tune Hughes collected and many singers have recorded their own version of the song including John McCormack in 1941, Kathleen Ferrier in 1949, Kenneth McKellar 1960) and soprano Arleen Auger in 1988. The version we hear today is the Cambridge Singers with an arrangement by John Rutter

Country Gardens is an English folk tune collected by the musicologist Cecil Sharp. Percy Grainger (1882 – 1961) was an Australian-born composer and pianist and famously arranged this popular folk tune for piano in 1918 as a birthday gift for his beloved mother. It became his biggest success, selling more than 40,000 copies a year in the US alone.