Songs of the North (2026)

SSATB and piano
Text: John Challis (North); Catherine Ayres (Notes made on Hadrian’s Wall); Ian Stuart (Journey North) These three poems can be found on the Poem of the North website:
https://poemofthenorth.co.uk/

Duration: 12 minutes
Commissioned by Newcastle Bach Choir to celebrate Eric Cross’s 40th anniversary as conductor

I North
II Notes made on Hadrian’s Wall
III Journey North

Songs of the North sets three texts from ‘Poem of the North’, a poetic collaboration celebrating 50 years of the Northern Poetry Library. As part of the project, poems were written with a new ‘821’ form: a structure characterized by 11-line, three-stanza poems that employ the ‘volta’ concept to subtly interconnect series of stanzas. The work’s celebration of Northern English writing begins with ‘North’, a flowing and forward-moving movement that reflects the poet’s consideration of north as ‘a progressive direction’. The second movement, ‘Notes made on Hadrian’s Wall’, has a folk-like simplicity and integrates the folk song ‘Waters of Tyne’ into the texture. Additionally, the poem’s references to the Sycamore Gap tree are given greater poignance following its illegal felling in 2023. The final movement, ‘Journey North’, has a rhythmic drive that evokes an exciting train journey through a fast-changing landscape.

Programme Note:

Songs of the North Cecilia McDowall

I. North
2. Notes made on Hadrian’s Wall
3. Journey North

These three poems, North, Notes made on Hadrian’s Wall and Journey North were written as part of a poetic concept, ‘Poem of the North’, created by Lisa Matthews to celebrate 50 years of the Northern Poetry Library, established in Morpeth, Northumberland in 1968. The library hosts the largest collection of post-World War II poetry in England outside London, home to constellations of finely-tuned, often moving and sometimes unnerving words.

Lisa Matthews writes, ‘the Poem of the North’ brings together the work of the fifty selected poets, in five cantos, published over a period of six months. By the end of 2018, the completed poem stands as a celebratory artefact: a tribute to the region and acknowledgement of the North’s rich seam of writers and written culture.’

The concept behind Poem of the North is that each poem is based on a new poetic form … 8-2-1 … a form devised by Lisa Matthews as a tribute to the poetry section of libraries. The 821 poetic form is an 11-line, 3-stanza structure which draws its inspiration from the number assigned to English poetry in the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system. Secondly, 821 utilises the “volta”, a concept traditionally associated with sonnets and used to create a subtly interconnected series of stanzas that turn or riff off one another.

Songs of the North, for mixed chorus and piano, was commissioned by the Newcastle Bach Choir to celebrate Eric Cross’ 40th anniversary as conductor. John Challis’ North is the first poem in this new work and he writes that his poem ‘considers north as a progressive direction’. The text gives a real sense of always moving onwards and holding the idea of ‘north’ close. Catherine Ayres’ poem, Notes made on Hadrian’s Wall has a spare quality about it; silence, a vast sky above the ‘shadow spine’ of the wall and a deep sense of history. The words, ‘I mean nothing, almost sucked towards the sycamore’s crown,’ are particularly poignant in the light of the wanton destruction of the Sycamore Gap tree. I have given this movement a simple ‘folk-like feel and integrated the folk song, Waters of Tyne, into the texture. The rhythmic drive of final poem, Journey North by Ian Stuart suggests an exciting train journey through a fast-changing landscape, pausing for a moment to observe ‘a blaze of sunflowers’, their faces raised ‘to the silent sky.’