GIJF Day 3: Jazz Words Part 2 - Christine Tobin’s Sailing To Byzantium.

Christine Tobin (vocals and Composer); Phil Robson (guitar); Kate Short (cello); Liam Noble (piano); Dave Whitford (double bass).

(Review by Ann Alex.)

(Christine Tobin: Photo credit, Mark Savage.)

The talented Christine Tobin won a British Composer Award in 2012 for this work, which I found mostly enjoyable and true to the spirit of WB Yeats poems, which I know quite well. I’d be interested to know what people, who didn't know much of Yeats’ work, made of this.

This was very evocative material, starting with a reading of the poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree, from a CD, a poem many people may remember from their school-days   The other poems were sung with great feeling by Ms Tobin, with very skilled and appropriate accompaniment.  For instance, When You Are Old And Grey was a slow melodic tune, as suitable for a love poem, written about Yeats’ life-long unrequited love for Maude Gonne, who was married to one of the men involved in the ill-fated Easter Rising at Dublin in 1916.  The next poem concerned Celtic mythology, which interested Yeats, and began with a haunting cello introduction.  The Wild Swans At Coole concerned memories from Yeats’ younger days, with gliding swan-like music from guitar and cello.  The mood changed completely for The Second Coming, about a possible catastrophic future for the world, ‘ And what rough beast, its hour come round at last’, she sang, to shrieks and wild guitar and cello sounds, and dramatic beastly breathing into the microphone.  I thought this worked well, but not everyone liked this, as two of the audience left at this point.

I’m not sure if the final 2 poems were really successful.  The Long Legged Fly was read through a megaphone, and I couldn't understand why this was, as this difficult poem appears to be about various historical events. It would have been good to hear the poem mentioned in the title of the session, Sailing To Byzantium, in which Yeats meditates about old age, but Ms Tobin explained that its inclusion had not proved feasible. 

The short discussion which followed allowed the originators of both the Yeats and Larkin projects to outline how they had tackled their work, with comments from local award-winning poet Sean O’Brien. The discussion then developed into talk about the nature of art and music in general.

Both these jazz and poetry sessions were enjoyable and thought provoking.  

Ann Alex.