Music

1. Ravel: Introduction and Allegro
2. Christopher Jackson: Wedding Prelude. Download a recording or the sheet music here.
3. Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music
4. Britten: Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

Readings

1. William Shakespeare: Sonnet no. 128

   How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,
   Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
   With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st
   The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
   Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,
   To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
   Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,
   At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
   To be so tickled, they would change their state 
   And situation with those dancing chips,
   O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
   Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips.
   Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
   Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
       (Read by Sandra Ramsden)
   

2. Christina Rossetti: A Birthday

   My heart is like a singing bird 
   Whose nest is in a water'd shoot; 
   My heart is like an apple-tree 
   Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit; 
   My heart is like a rainbow shell 
   That paddles in a halcyon sea; 
   My heart is gladder than all these,
   Because my love is come to me.
   
   Raise me a daïs of silk and down; 
   Hang it with vair and purple dyes; 
   Carve it in doves and pomegranates, 
   And peacocks with a hundred eyes; 
   Work it in gold and silver grapes, 
   In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys; 
   Because the birthday of my life 
   Is come, my love is come to me.
       (Read by Patricia Dray)
   

3. Lynnette Dray:

   
   So this, then, is the ending of the story -
   The closing curtain of the operetta,
   When all are wed. It's time. Our separate lives
   Are sewn together in a glorious jumble,
   All rings and stars and honey-wine and joy.
   
   All stories must end somewhere, this is true.
   But story-love leaves much to be desired:
   Your heart's a strange and cruel and glittering thing,
   bought and fought for, sold, its own last end,
   And if not crowned in marraige, ends in death.
   
   All stories must end somewhere, or we find
   In some grey mirror Tristan and Isolde
   In supermarket car parks in the rain.
   Our orphaned words will fail when faced with time,
   And mountain-moving love must pay the rent.
   
   Enough of tales that turn from turning years!
   That other and more homely kind of love
   That ripens with the seasons and the sun - 
   As fine - more real - more steadfast and more sound -
   Is narrative enough for us. And we
   Can fill our hearts with fragments cut from time,
   Or mysteries shared, of laughter, wonder, hope,
   Of music drifting from an upstairs room,
   Of getting lost in backstreets, and of knowing
   The thoughts behind each other's eyes unsaid.
   
   So this, then, is the ending of the story - 
   We write our own tomorrows, we are free
   to walk out hand-in-hand into the light
   Of this imperfect, glorious world, and live.
       (Read by Eve Jacques)
       

Chris & Lynnette chrislynnette@fluffhouse.org.uk