My latest release is ‘Half-Heard’, a song that is (I think) about Tasmania. To decide for yourself whether that’s true or not, read on – but first watch and listen to the song:
A song about Tasmania?
Australian author Christopher (C. J.) Koch (1922 – 2013) is best known for novels such as The Year of Living Dangerously, but his first published work was in fact a small poem called ‘Half-Heard’. For a brief time in the mid 1990’s Chris and I were next-door neighbours in Launceston, Tasmania. During our discussions of music and writing he introduced me to his poetry, and when I expressed admiration for ‘Half-Heard’ he encouraged me to set it to music. Life intervened, however, and I had to put my sketches aside, not completing the song until many years later. This is its first performance.
Chris never said exactly what ‘Half-Heard’ was about, but for me it powerfully evokes the sense of something uncanny in the atmosphere of Tasmania, where I lived for four years and where he grew up. The opening lines – “On the road through the hills … Something moving, coming with evening, /In its slow warm breathing through the paddock-land” – put me in mind of Yeats’ ‘Second Coming’, with its “rough beast” that “Slouches towards Bethlehem”. Chris may not have intended to suggest something so sinister, but both in his conversation and in his novels set in Tasmania, he made it abundantly clear that he was aware of the “dark” edge to the air of Australia’s island state that more recently has been exploited and played upon in, for example, the Dark Mofo festival and the Mona art museum, with its shop selling black hoodies and “death candles”.
The music and video
I’ve set the poem with simple folk-like melodies (partly in recognition of Chris’s love of folk music, evident in novels such as The Doubleman) and a deliberate use of archaic-sounding harmonies and progressions. The original version of the song included a melody instrument as well as the voice and harp; this is a new (2022) version that incorporates what that instrument played into the harp part and adds many other small changes, without changing the vocal part or the overall feel of the song.
I’m very grateful to Janneke Ferwerda (soprano) and Tijana Kozarčić (harp), who sang and played this first performance of ‘Half-Heard’ beautifully in the rich acoustics and visual surroundings of the Auburn Uniting Church, Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia.
Many thanks also to Peter Lamshed of Salvage Films (@salvagefilmsoz, www.salvagefilms.com), who took the videos (any shortcomings in the way they have been assembled and edited are, however, my responsibility) and to Alan Chuck and Auburn Uniting Church for the use of the church and facilities.
Higher quality audio recordings of ‘Half-Heard’ are available from Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Deezer and other streaming and download services.
‘Half-Heard’ can be sung by any medium to high voice and the accompaniment played on any kind of harp or other plucked-string instrument that has the necessary range (e.g. lute, theorbo, koto, zheng, qin). Alternatively, it could be arranged for two separate plucked string instruments, e.g. standard and bass acoustic guitars, or guitar and one of the abovementioned alternative instruments. The original part for melody instrument (recorder, flute, shakuhachi, xiao, clarinet, violin) could potentially also be reinstated. If you are interested in performing ‘Half-heard’ or would like more information, please CONTACT me.
‘Half-Heard’ is one of three settings I’ve made of Australian poems. The others are ‘The Lost Man’, with a text by Judith Wright, and ‘Daphne Restored’, with text by Gwen Harwood: more information.
To hear more of my music: Listen or YouTube @neilbucklandmusic.
Neil Buckland
Half-Heard
On the road through the hills I thought I heard it,
Something moving, coming with evening,
In its slow warm breathing through the paddock-land.
The few and spiteful houses there ignored it.
It had come from the coast. I stood on the coast,
Where gulls cried angrily for something that moved,
In the sun-plains across the sea.
The water there was heavy with its hand.
And one by one the evening waves caressed the sullen sand.
Quietly they pondered on nothing at all,
On the laying of their long quiet hands, perhaps,
Upon the waiting beach.
Considering carefully nothing at all,
They too ignored the bird’s half-baffled cry.
– Christopher Koch
Leave A Comment