Aubade

Program Notes:

Tovey, Music Director of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, wrote a suite of three Jacobean songs for Elektra in 2012, called “Songs of Envious Time”. In this first movement on a poem by Sir William Davenant (1603 – 1663), the scene is a bedroom at dawn, where we hear the lark sing outside the window. The second verse describes various tradesmen who have to get up early. But why should a lover?

Conductor Notes:

Please see “Songs of Envious Time” for notes on all three movements of this suite.

Text:

I Aubade Text: Sir William Davenant (1603-1663)

The lark now leaves his wat’ry nest,

And climbing shakes his dewy wings.

He takes this window for the East,

And to implore your light he sings-

Awake, awake! the morn will never rise

Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes.

The merchant bows unto the seaman’s star,

The ploughman from the sun his season takes,

But still the lover wonders what they are

Who look for day before his mistress wakes.

Awake, awake! break thro’ your veils of lawn!

Then draw your curtains, and begin the dawn!