Text – ‘In a Low Rocking Chair’
Heaven is a fine place, a fine place entirely
Oh, like Killarney in rose-time ‘twill be,
With Mary in a blue gown flowered like the meadow,
And Little Christ as like a rose
As any rose you’d see.
Himself is high upon a throne; but Herself sits a-rocking
In a low rocking-chair, her babe on her knee.
Sure, now he’d go to sleep at once, and Herself a-crooning,
And not lie with his eyes wide
The way you’d treat me.
Now fasten down your eyelids and get you gone a-sleeping,
And in a little heart beat in heaven you’ll be,
And when you’ve bowed to Himself, and made herself a curtsey,
And kissed the Little Rose o’heaven,
Come back along to me.
Written by Helen Coale Crew, the poem appeared in the Oct. 1924 issue of Bookfellows’ Step Ladder monthly magazine and was honored in The Bookman in their poems of the month section.12 Praised as evoking the “spirit of the Middle Ages,” the poem is written from a mother’s point of view as she tries to lull her child to sleep, invoking religious imagery of heaven and the Virgin Mary in her description of sleep.11 The poem imitates Irish vernacular with its frequent use of conjunctions, the use of ‘a’ before verbs, and sometimes inverted sentence structures.
The text is set exactly as written, though some conjunctions – ‘o’heaven,’ for instance – are treated as full words (‘of heaven’) in the music.
Expressive Characteristics
“Irish Lullaby” was omitted from a seven-volume compilation of Mary Howe’s songs published 1959,4 as it had been published in 1948 separately by Carl Fischer.1 A manuscript copy of the score is held by her alma mater, the Peabody Institute.
Mary Howe set Crew’s poem in 1939, after she had already garnered notoriety as a successful composer as an orchestral and vocal music composer.3 By this time, Howe had set dozens of poems in a number of languages, including English, French, and German, and was at the time working on settings of poetry by Goethe. Her music written in the ’30s displays a tendency toward harmonic and formal complexity, and this particular song is a strong example of this.2
“Irish Lullaby” never exceeds a mezzo-forte in its dynamic, and stays at a fairly consist tempo throughout (the suggestion to be ‘unhurried,’ as the expression markings suggest at the beginning). Though ritards and accelerandi are given, the piece is understood to have a certain rubato at the end of sections, especially the fermata preceding the B section as well as the ending of the piece.
Though it appears to be set in traditional ABA form, the A and B sections differ quite strongly in surprising ways. Howe sets the first and third stanzas in a gentle, 4/4 time with a repeated ‘low, high, low, high’ pattern in the accompaniment to convey a simple rocking effect. Roughly in Eb major, the piece uses quartal and quintal harmonies and to evoke a rustic setting, avoiding pure triads until the B section. Occasional chromatic inflections appear in the A section, although the vocal line notably stays grounded in a comfortable Eb tonality. The vocal line’s stepwise, up-and-down contours suggest a quietly secure lulling effect that complements the text well.
The B section is in, broadly speaking, the relative minor, and suddenly transitions to 6/8. The rocking sensation, though retained, becomes asymmetrical, and the harmonic language takes on an initially triadic vocabulary that gradually becomes increasingly chromatic. This is perhaps to accompany the text’s religious imagery and more desperate attempts to lull the child to sleep. The piece gradually moves back toward a more consistent ‘rocking’ rhythm through the use of 2-against-3 rhythms, and ultimately segues into the A’ section’s familiar quintal/quartal harmonies. This time, the vocal line’s intervallic content is decidedly wider, with larger leaps taken in both directions, perhaps to suggest the mother’s freedom now that her child has finally fallen asleep.
Accompaniment
It is noted that the piano accompaniment is deceivingly difficult because of its large intervallic reach and occasional hand-crossing. As a whole, the piece is not particularly challenging, and is well-suited to student accompanists. As in other lullabies of Howe’s, including the ‘Old English Lullaby,’ the piano part imitates the swaying sensation of sitting in a rocking chair. Though not indicated, it is recommended to have small cresc./dim. in the interpretation of these up/down gestures. Rhythmic consistency is advised, as excessive rubato might detract from the imagery.
The transition into the 6/8 section should be handled with care; m.19 briefly teases at the asymmetrical rocking that dominates the B section. Special attention should be given to rehearsing the duplets in the B section that begin m.29. These duplets should not be equal to the quarter note rhythms of the A and A’ sections, as the transition back to A’ should be relatively surprising.
The increasingly chromatic and distant keys of the B section should be emphasized to increase harmonic tension, though, they should not come across as harsh. The poco sforzando in m.42, should be treated as an accent instead of a true sf.
Performance Requirements
As “Irish Lullaby” is a relatively straightforward and transparent piece, the song is a solid choice for beginning singers’ 20th century repertoire. Ideally, the piece should be sung by a female voice, as the speaker compares herself to the Virgin Mary. The tessitura of the piece extends from Eb4 to Eb5 (both on the staff), making it reasonable for soprani, mezzi, and alti.
Phrase markings are occasionally indicated, though for the longer lines, it seems as though Howe made room for flexibility in interpretation. Ideally, a singer should have longer breath lines to manage the lengthier implied phrases as in the B section.
