Heroic Hearts (2024)

Come, my friends,

‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order to smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

from Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

When Ed Frazier Davis invited me to write a choral work (for his excellent choir Vox Venti) in memory of his wonderful father, conductor Sir Andrew Davis, I asked who Sir Andrew’s favourite poet was. Ed told me that he loved Tennyson hence the setting of these joyous lines from Tennyson’s epic poem Ulysses. Our hero, from Homer’s Odyssey, having spent 10 years trying to get back home after a further 10 years of battle, finds himself restless and drawn to one last possible adventure…

For me, Sir Andrew’s effervescent, adventurous and energetic personality calls from these lines. In this dramatic setting, I’ve incorporated old traditional Greek bouzouki modes/scales to place us in that corner of the world and create a churning sea with these scales, as Ulysses dreams of another epic journey.

This piece is dedicated to the memory of Sir Andrew, with whom I have a formative and fabulous time working, on my commission for 2018’s Last Night of the Proms.

I’m very grateful to my ex-Head of English Tim Williams for finding me these words, to Ed and Vox Venti for commissioning this piece.

RP,12th November 2024