A Traveller to the Watershed

This is a musical exploration of the landscape of the River Sow, a small river with a varied environment which flows entirely within Stafford Borough.

The source of the river lies just below the Watershed of Britain, the natural backbone of this island. At Fairoak the river is the furthest west that water is flowing to the East coast and there is feeling of being at a border. Beyond the woods are the Shropshire Hills and Wales – a quite different world.

The twelve pieces are all just four minutes long, like prints in matching frames. They were composed for flute and harpsichord and then arranged for orchestra for the CD.

Some are descriptive landscape pieces, some relate to history, and some use quotations from Izaak Walton, who may not have had this area in mind when writing but who provides some very appropriate mottoes. He was obviously keen on music.

The music had to be suitable for the original instrumentation and always tries to find a simple way of making its point. Part of the interest is in the different ways you can explore a place in music. It will always be a mixture of description, memories, moods and symbol. The overall form reflects the form of the river itself. It’s a traveller’s notebook of a personal adventure.

All audio tracks are Windows Media streaming audio format at 64kbps. Windows Media Player is required to play these files.

1: The Traveller at Riverway
The Riverway field brings the country right up to Asda. I will always remember a giant Dreamcatcher slung in the trees for a Friends of Riverway festival. There’s a bit of the wandering fool in this piece, a rather innocent traveller.

2: A Wanderer in the Marshes
On a misty day in October Doxey Marshes is a strange place. It’s close to the centre of town, bordered by motorway and railway, and yet must still be close to the atmosphere it had when Franciscan friars would have wandered out here from Greyfriars.

3: Walking the meadows
“I will walk the meadows, by some gliding stream, and there contemplate the lilies that take no care, and those very many other various little living creatures that are not only created, but fed, man knows not how, by the goodness of the God of Nature, and therefore trust in him. This is my purpose; and so, let everything that hath breath praise the Lord” (Izaak Walton)

4: The Dancing River
“And one of no less credit than Aristotle, tells us of a merry river, the river Elusina, that dances at the noise of musick, for with musick it bubbles, dances, and grows sandy, and so continues till the musick ceases, but then it presently returns to its wonted calmness and clearness.” (Izaak Walton)

5: Study to be Quiet
The motto of the Compleat Angler. (I Thessalonians 4:11). A simple piece in two parts, the second of which is in the style of a 17thc hymn tune.

6: Lost in Garmelow
There is a Garmelow crossroads, but not much sign of a village. There are confusing lanes, shadowy hedges, sudden views of valleys. To a traveller it’s “darkest England”.
I don’t know if the name has anything to do with the Garm, the dog that guards the underworld, in Norse mythology – but this is a border place.

7: Queen Margaret’s Mystery
Margaret of Anjou, Queen of Henry VI, fled to Eccleshall from the Battle of Blore Heath. This must have been a remote place for someone from the impoverished but highly cultured world of her father King Rene.

8: The Repose at Fairoak
“…this is musick indeed; this has cheer'd my heart” (Izaak Walton)

9: Showers and a Song
“But turn out of the way a little, good scholar! toward yonder high honeysuckle hedge; there we'll sit and sing whilst this shower falls so gently upon the teeming earth, and gives yet a sweeter smell to the lovely flowers that adorn these verdant meadows.”
In the Compleat Angler a milkmaid wanders in to sing “Come live with me and be my love”.

10: Remembered Hills
From Broughton the Shropshire Hills, The Long Mynd, Caer Caradoc, are another world far away over the ridge of Bishop’s Wood which is the Watershed of England.

11: Love in the Stream
“Love in the fountain is love in the stream, and love in the stream equally glorious with love in the fountain” writes Thomas Traherne. The river is an image of love, like water, being the same from source, through its changes, to its end. This is a very simple fantasy developing a few notes from a trickle to a tune.

12: Golden Hill
Golden Hill is a farm on the Watershed. I could imagine a house here, on the border, where the whole landscape below can be seen to have a meaning and even the very humble River Sow is a tributary of the River of Life.

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