I sang in my chains like the sea' is the closing line of Dylan Thomas’ wonderful poem Fern Hill. The narrator is looking back, mourning his lost youth, which is brought into sharper focus with echoes of the opening line ‘Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs’:
‘Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea’
This link provides a recording of Thomas reciting the poem which, unlike Richard Burton’s reading, remains true to the text: Fern Hill.
This exciting project has been supported by Prof. John Goodby, a poet and leading expert on Dylan Thomas, who has been advising the composers and who will introduce the poems at the concert. John Goodby says:
‘What better way to mark the 70th anniversary of the passing of this most musical of poets, a master of “the colour of saying”, than with a concert of fresh settings of some of his poems? Five seasoned composers - Phil Grange, Hayley Jenkins, Sadie Harrison, Rhian Samuel, plus my chief collaborator David Lancaster, and two notable performers (David Pipe and Christopher O'Gorman) team up in what promises to be a truly memorable collaborative tribute to the Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive. See you there!’
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