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‘A Blessing’ is part of the song cycle, ‘Gifts’ – five poems by David Cameron set to music by David Jaeger. This performance is by Karen Usha Gray for an online service by Grace Church on-the-Hill, Toronto, in June 2020.

Music by David Jaeger

Swan Ensemble:

Violins
Colli Chan
Cristina Morell

Violas
Jordi Morell
Helena Sánchez

Cello
Natalie Morell

Edited by Stephen Cameron

Poems by David Cameron

1. A Blessing

I call a blessing
Down on your head.
A shadow’s moving
In the oyster bed.

I hear a whisper
In the loudest room.
I see an angel
Perched on my tomb.

Angel oh angel,
Put down your pen.
Did I love enough?
Will I see her again?

2. For Winter

I thought my love for winter lost
Till your insomniac eyes of frost
Burned into me, so pure and clear
With slow abandonment of fear.

3. Sometimes the Summer

Sometimes the summer appears
In other seasons; as, today,
I was settling down to winter
When it began.

So I walk across the fields, collecting the years,
Summers that have been, and meet you there,
Eyes glinting like sails, last year.
Thank you. I want never again
To settle into winter like snow.
Here are the same fields and fences,
The earth that will invite the lambs to dance,
Water with something clear to say.

4. Gifts

Child of the light, I bring you
Fresh handfuls of wild flowers
From fields you do not visit.
I bring them. Don’t despise them,
Though you find their scent bitter.

They can be arranged, so,
Into a wreath of heartbreak.
But it will wither.
The fields will be drenched again
By the sweet waters.

David Jaeger calls “Quivi Sospiri” a tone poem in which I wanted to depict the scene in the Third Canto of Dante’s Inferno….there is total darkness…Dante describes the sounds he hears…”

Constable and the Spirit of the Clouds · Elizabeth Reid
Conjuring: Viola Music of David Jaeger
℗ 2023 Elizabeth Reid
Released on: 2023-02-03

Annie Li, Pianist
recorded in Toronto, Canada, August 2021

David Jaeger-Producer
Liam Jaeger – Engineer, Mixing, Film & Editing

Annie Li, Pianist
recorded in Toronto, Canada, August 2021

David Jaeger-Producer
Liam Jaeger – Engineer, Mixing, Film & Editing

Veda Hingert-McDonald (violin) and Marlena Pellegrino (viola)