Joe Stollery

As someone interested in his local environment, the poetry of Ted Hughes has fascinated me since secondary school, and for my second year composition portfolio I chose to set his poem ‘Hawk Roosting’. The poem, which describes the thoughts and feelings of a hawk as it meditates against a sunset, gripped me with its development of the hawk’s menacing imagination out of the calm backdrop of twilight, and the variety of moods involved in it suited it well for a setting.

The song is through-composed, and divided into six sections, one for each verse. The poem is structured so that each verse describes a particular thought in itself, and this helped me to develop my piece, structuring it in the following way:

Verse 1: Sets the hawk in its natural environment near twilight, with a calm mood.

Verse 2: Hawk ponders on the lightness of his body and how it suits his agility. Light mood, then moves too-

Verse 3: Describing his hold on the branch beneath him, symbolising his hold on his environment, strict and articulate.

Verse 4: Hawk then talks of flying up above the world as an alternative domination. He climaxes by showing instincts of killing his prey, gliding mood which intensifies savagely, leading to-

Verse 5: Hawk describes his control over who dies and survives in his environment. Broad and solemn mood, which dies away.

Verse 6: Returning to the present mood of the natural environment, Hawk comments growing twilight, reiterating his desire to keep things his way. Dark, subdued mood which dies down, then finishes on a savage tremolo in the bottom of the piano.

A rhythmic motive stands out throughout the piece, perhaps representing the heartbeat of the hawk. This motive occurs in various guises, from the highest notes in the tranquil opening bars, to the profound bass-range in the dark coda. The piece also modulates frequently, beginning and finishing in the realm of f# minor, while modulating through alien keys.