To a Skylark

This short, rhythmical work is inspired by an area of McGlade’s native Cornwall and uses the text of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem of the same name. The area, where a common meets the sea, is home to many skylarks who, it is thought, sing to ward off predators out to steal their young from nests hidden in the long grass. To a Skylark is a setting of just a few verses of Shelley’s lengthy poem in which the composer portrays, through the quick, light, undulating melodies, this joyous bird flitting its wings and pouring forth its rapturous strains. The music is quite dissonant at times and the tonality purposefully a little unstable – trouble and danger may be close at hand, but the skylark’s song continues above it. In the final verse, the poet brings the focus on himself, longing perhaps that he could live life with the same carefree gladness of the skylark. This contemplative mood is captured in the slower, more expressive music of the closing section. The piece ends very softly; all is still as we listen attentively to the birdsong.