CHILDREN’S SUITE AFTER WALTER DE LA MARE
When music sounds, gone is the earth I know, and her lovely things even lovelier grow.—Walter de la Mare
Sir George Dyson was a well-known English composer who set many of his favorite poems to music. His delightful Children’s Suite is styled after the poetry of Walter de la Mare—delightful but with a darker undertone.
If you are interested in other musical treatments of Walter de la Mare, The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive has an index of his poems set to music. I also learned that Cecil Armstrong Gibbs composed a Threnody for Walter de la Mare; a threnody is a lament.
Walter de la Mare published three volumes of poetry for children: Songs of Childhood, Peacock Pie, and Bells and Grass. If you are looking for a single volume of children’s poems by Walter de la Mare, I recommend Rhymes and Verses: Collected Poems for Young People, charmingly illustrated by Elinor Blaisdell.
• detail of Under the Dockleaves a frontispiece by Richard Dyson for the first edition of Songs of Childhood by Walter Ramal {de la Mare} •
November 8, 2013