Become a Friend of the Trust
Contact us
Music
 Home
 News
 Profile
 Writing
 Articles
 Music
 Listen
 Gallery
 Timeline
 Trust
 Register
 Contact



The Prison Cycle (Pages from 'The Swallow Book') for Mezzo-Soprano and Piano, Op. 19 (1939)



The song-cycle, entitled 'The Prison Cycle', is a collaboration between two composers, Alan Bush and Alan Rawsthorne.

In 1938, a group of refugees from Nazi Germany living in London founded the Free German League of Culture. This presented works by German progressive artists, whether painters, musicians or writers. In 1939, the League invited Alan Bush and Alan Rawsthorne to compose together a song-cycle to poems by Ernst Toller. Toller had taken a leading part in the short-lived Bavarian Workers' Republic, and he wrote these poems during his subsequent term of imprisonment. The cycle was performed several times during 1939 to 1941, but then the manuscript seems to have been mislaid for about 35 years.

The prelude to the cycle by Alan Bush pictures Toller in his cell. "Six paces forward, six paces back! No sense in it!", he sings. The follows a song by Bush about the gradually increasing articles of ordinary objects in his cell, like furniture, and even the iron grating. Rawsthorne's contribution comes next: an interlude and a song about a pair of swallows, who nested on the window-ledge until they were slaughtered by the prison guards. Bush's ending to the cycle once more evokes the poet's angry pacing to and fro.


Music Home
Compositions
Operas
Commentaries
Recordings
Index of Works

Major Works
Opera
Wat Tyler
Men of Blackmoor
The Sugar Reapers
Joe Hill - The Man Who Never Died
Orchestral Work
Symphony No. 1 in C
Symphony No. 2 'The Nottingham Symphony'
Symphony No. 3 'The Byron Symphony' with Baritone Solo and Mixed Chorus
Symphony No. 4 - Lascaux Symphony
Dorian Passacaglia and Fugue
Concertos
Piano Concerto
Violin Concerto
Chamber Music
Dialectic for String Quartet
Concert Piece for Cello and Piano
Lyric Interlude for Violin Solo with Piano Accompaniment
Three Concert Studies for Piano, Violin and Cello
Piano Music
Relinquishment
Nocturne
Twenty Four Preludes
Choral Music
'The Winter Journey' - A Christmas Cantata for Soprano and Baritone Solo, Mixed Chorus, String Quintet and Harp
Solo Song
'Voices of the Prophets' - Cantata for Tenor and Piano
'The Freight of Harvest' - Song Cycle for Tenor and Piano
'Life's Span' - Song Cycle for Mezzo-Soprano and Piano
'Woman's Life' - Song cycle for Soprano and Piano