Return Journey

Swansea Philharmonic Choir; Jonathan Rogers (cond.) at The Brangwyn, Swansea (UK) on 8 December 2019

The third and final response in this series of works uses the words of one of Swansea’s (if not Wales's) finest exports – Dylan Thomas. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has always said that setting Thomas’ words to music is borderline ‘sacrilegious’, as his poetry is so rich, intensely wordy, and frankly, musical to begin with. However, as a set of responses to Swansea’s equally rich history, it would seem silly not to include a direct response to Dylan Thomas’ vast output, especially since so much is about Swansea itself. Here in this work, based on a Dylan Thomas' BBC broadcast, ‘Return Journey’.

It wasn’t until February 1947 that Thomas felt ready to write about the Swansea Blitz. In his broadcast, the narrator travels through Swansea seeking his younger self, and in so doing, attempts to recover a Swansea lost to the Blitz. It was recorded for the BBC Home Service in April 1947 and broadcast a month later.

Dylan Thomas undertook meticulous research to ensure he had correctly named all the shops and buildings that had been lost, as this extract from the broadcast shows: “I went out of the hotel into the snow and walked down the high street, past the flat white wastes where all the shops had been. Eddershaw Furnishers, Curry’s Bicycles, Donegal Clothing Company, Doctor Scholl’s, Burton Tailors, W.H.Smith, Boots…- all the shops bombed and vanished. Past the hole in space where Hodges & Clothiers had been, down Castle Street, past the remembered, invisible shops”.

-njd.

SATB choir (divided)

4’

This work was developed for Swansea Philharmonic Choir as part of the Adopt-a-Composer scheme, funded by the PRS Foundation and the Philip and Dorothy Green Music Trust, and run by Making Music UK, in partnership with Sound and Music and BBC Radio 3.