CAREY BLYTON - WAR SONG OF THE SARACENS -

War Song of the Saracens is a late work (opus 106 and dated September 4th, 1998). The scoring is for SATB choir and piano, "with tambourine(s), hand clapping, foot drumming and ululation" (the last is a high-pitched yodel). These add somewhat to the character of the music, which is set to the words of James Elroy Flecker (see below). The three verses are followed in the score by a gallop, a trot (with horse hoofs represented admirably by the tambourines) and another gallop. The speed of delivery of the words is exacting and could easily mar a performance (but certainly not this recording!). The dedication is "to David Fanshawe, Musical Explorer" (b. 1942), he of the African Sanctus fame, who has done a great deal of research into the music of not only Africa but Iraq and elsewhere.
(John Webber, 2004)

Carey includes the following 'Composer's Note' in the printed score of this piece:
The powerful imagery of this poem will be greatly enhanced by the 'effects' indicated: hand clapping, murmuring, foot drumming and ululation (a form of high-pitched yodelling). Tambourines should be the largest available, with jingles (to imitate the jingling harnesses of trotting horses). Bell Trees may be substituted.
Hand clapping should be performed by the female singers, while the male singers should play the tambourines.
(Carey Blyton)

James Elroy Flecker's words follow:
(why not read as you listen)
We are they who come faster than fate: we are they who ride early or late:
We storm at your ivory gate: Pale Knights of the sunset, beware!
Not in silk nor in samet we lie, not in curtained solemnity die
Among women who chatter and cry, and children who mumble a prayer.
But we sleep by the ropes of the camp, and we rise with a shout, and we tramp
With the sun or the moon for a lamp, and the spray of the wind in our hair.

From the lands, where the elephants are, to the forts of Merou and Balghar,
Our steel we have brought and our star to shine on the ruins of Rum.
We have marched from the Indus to Spain, and by God we will go there again;
We have stood on the shore of the plain where the Waters of Destiny boom.
A mart of destruction we made at Jalula where men were afraid,
For death was a difficult trade, and the sword was a broker of doom;

And the spear was a Desert Physician who cured not a few of ambition,
And drave not a few to perdition with medicine bitter and strong:
And the shield was a grief to the fool and as bright as a desolate pool,
And as straight as the rock of Stamboul when their cavalry thundered along;
For the coward was drowned with the brave when our battle sheered up like a wave,
And the dead to the desert we gave, and the glory of God in our song.
(James Elroy Flecker)

This recording is taken from:
The Choral Music of Carey Blyton
performed by Canzonetta, with Jennifer Partridge (piano)
Upbeat Classics, URCD190