The Shropshire Lad
NE cannot but suspect that many of those who admire A. E. Housman’s poems, especially when they are sung, do not listen to the words, which are almost always of a disturbing bitterness -sometimes declining into a positive ia -*
bathos of universal misfortune, the delight of pafodists: "What, still alive at twenty-two? A fine upstanding chap like you?" says one of them. The difficulty confronting musicians and singers must always be to prevent the music acquiring sentimental qualities that would obscure the bleak terseness and accuracy, as well as the genuine beauty, of the words. This was successfully avoided in the Somervell song cycle, sung by Walter Robinson from 3YA. It was particularly pleasant to hear another version of "Summertime on Bredon."
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19460118.2.17.7
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 343, 18 January 1946, Page 9
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125The Shropshire Lad New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 343, 18 January 1946, Page 9
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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