No. 5 Bredon Hill
Instrumentation
Piano and strings represent church bells - sometimes calm & distant, sometimes menacing.
Widely spaced chords with chains of parallel 4ths, sustained by pedal, pppp
Strings muted at the started, playing double stopped octaves, creating distant effect.
Just piano accompaniment - 52-83
Pizz and arco are combined to sound like bells - 100
105 - complex piano texture with RH melody doubles while LH has low block chords, strings have open harmonics at the end for another bell effect giving a delicate ethereal quality.
Structure
7 verse structure - A A B B1 C D A1 postlude
Tonality is blurred thoughout - 7th are superimposed and other dissonances introduced. However, G could be considered as a tonal centre.
Harmony
7th chords dominate - minor 7th at the start.
Other extended chords - 11ths at 52, impressionist styles.
More dissonances at his love's death at 85.
Texture
Homophonic at the start with bell-like block chords in the piano and simple ppp string octaves. Then melody dominated homophony as the voice enters.
Triplet ostinato accompaniment - 52
Voice ends with repeated notes - monophonic
Melody
Melody begins in mixolydian mode.
Occasional melisma.
In the verse the voice rises to a climactic top A as he begs for the bells to be silent.
Rhythm/metre/tempo
Sustained bell chords with tied semibreves at the start are followed by increased activity to minums and crochets and then quavers.
Triplet crochets also represent bells.
At 127, the voice is quite free irrespective of the accompaniment which should remain in strict time regardless of the voice - suggesting changing and reverberation of the bells.
This song describes how young love is defeated by death. A young man and his girlfriend listen to the church bells and talk of how they will listen to them on their wedding day. However, the girl dies and goes to the church 'on her own' for her funeral. He replied that he will also go to the church on his own one day - for his funeral.