British composer Cyril Scott was greatly admired by his contemporary composers, including Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky, yet his music is rarely heard today. Living until 1970, Scott had a prolific output, but today is known mostly for his solo piano work Lotus Land (also arranged for Violin & Piano by Kreisler). Today we take a look at a lesser known work from 1912, his Poems for solo piano.

For those not familiar with Cyril Scott, he was a man of diverse artistic interests. As a composer and pianist, he was well known as a musician, however he was also a writer, poet, and painter. His lifelong friend, and champion, pianist Evelyn Suart introduced him to topics of metaphysics, which showed themselves in Scott's writings for the rest of his life.

The Poems for piano consist of 5 short works, each based on a poem by Scott himself:

  1. Poppies
  2. The Garden of Soul-Sympathy
  3. Bells
  4. The Twilight of the Year
  5. Paradise-Birds

We'll focus on the fourth of these, The Twilight of the Year, which begins with it's text:

Now - dreams of summer sorrow melt in amber glory;
Sad, my heart returns to stanzas steeped in woe,
To lines that banish, with the bleeding leaves, a golden story
Of evening hours, anguished eyes and tears that flow.

Now - faded fragrance falls of lilac and syringa,
Roses, and lilies and buttercups galore,
And phantom vales with velvet-violet carpets palely linger
As dim re-echoes from the song of summer's lore.

Now - deeply throbbing sighs escape the muted viol
When across the meadows wanter tired herds:
We sing entwined - no longer can we read the sunless dial;
And e'en the wasted willows whisper weary words.

Scott begins with a slow repeated 8th note low in the piano, setting the sorrowful tone of the work. This is quick joined by exotic chords low in the piano register (many say Scott was well ahead of his time with progressive harmonies). These repeated chords, then move to a slowly ascending chord pattern, which we'll see again later.

As we see in Scott's poem, the sadness melts away to memories of love. The tones of the piano become more lively, with more hints of a major key. A dramatic glissando falls down the keyboard, before returning to the upper range. We then return to hints of the opening chords and the repeated eighth pattern and slow ascending chords as Scott mentions deeply throbbing sighs.

We've been able to locate two professional recordings of this work:
Dennis Henning, Piano
Leslie De'Ath, Piano