Peter Lawson

Song Of The Red Helleborine

The Song of the Red Helleborine was written in 1981 for James Shenton and Elizabeth Dunn, who gave it its first performance. It was the first in an extended cycle of portraits of the forty-eight wild orchids of Britain and Ireland - of which twenty-six, to date, have been written - ranging from solo items to pieces for chamber and orchestral combinations.
In Britain, the Red Helleborine (Cephalanthera rubra) is an extremely rare and protected species, being confined to three localities in the Cotswolds, the Chilterns and in Hampshire, where it will typically only flower in beech woods when it has the exact degree of light and shade it needs. Its British outposts are at the western edge of its distribution, which extends through Europe and the Middle East, to Iran. The plant is stately, but discreet, about eighteen inches in height and bears a handful of medium-size pink flowers, which alternate up the stem amongst a few spear-shaped leaves.
An introduction for solo viola describes the orchid underground in winter, as it were, talking to itself. The entry of the piano heralds the emergence of the flowering spike, which eventually dies away. There then follows a further winter solo viola section followed by a second summer of flowering. The music, which pays more than lip-service to Messiaen's Jardin du sommeil d'amour from his Turangalila Symphony, reflects the secretive peace and dappled sunlight of the cathedral-like canopy of the beech woods in which the orchid grows. (Peter Lawson, 2004)
Duration: 6 minutes