Bridal Lullaby
Posted in Classical, Film Music on May 17th, 2009 No Comments »
This is an exquisite, short piano piece by the English composer, Percy Grainger. He wrote it as a wedding gift for a young woman he had once loved. It is enchanting in its own right, but film buffs may recognise it from the soundtrack of the Merchant Ivory film ‘Howard’s End’, E M Forster’s novel. In the opening scene, Vanessa Redgrave, the doomed mistress of Howard’s End, wanders through the grounds at dusk, in a reverie of nostalgia for the life she has lived there. She moves through the grass in her long Edwardian dress, the sounds of the breeze and her skirt brushing against the long grass like the sound of a distant sea. Behind her, shades moving across the lights of the house, are her family and friends, the sounds of their merriment carried on the summer breeze. The last sounds of joy and innocence, before tragedy falls.
In this version, I have taken the recording direct from the film, rather than the commercial recording. After dramatic opening chords from the soundtrack, foretelling the tragedy that is to come, we come back to the quiet summer evening and Grainger’s lovely theme; you can hear Redgrave moving through the grass and sounds of laughter from the distant house. It’s all the more poignant for it. The pianist is Martin Jones.
