I am no stranger to setting music to text. Before composing Songs from "The Squire's Bride" in 2011, I had written two songs for Baritone and piano based on poems by Edgar Allan Poe and Percy Bysshe Shelly one year earlier. "The Squire's Bride," however presented more of a challenge for me in terms of the text and the overall approach. For this piece, I wanted to focus on the song cycle, instead of a single movement. I also had to adapt crucial elements of the text (both direct and implied) for this music.
The text in question is taken from Norwegian folklore about a wealthy squire who becomes obsessed with wanting to marry a farmer's daughter. Despite being rejected, he makes a deal with the farmer to hold the wedding regardless... in exchange for money and land. When the farmer's daughter receives word of the wedding from the Squire's lad, she plays along. Unbeknownst to them all, she manages to trick the Squire into marrying... a horse!
Bearing this synopsis in mind, I decided to approach Songs from "The Squire's Bride" as a musical monologue, sung from the perspective of the farmer's daughter. In many respects, this song cycle evolves from the "traditional" German Romantic style to more modern harmonies and techniques (e.g. cluster chords and spoken word). It also features instances of musical quotations from Wagner's "Bridal Chorus" from Lohengrin and Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" from his incidental music to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Songs from "The Squire's Bride" consists of three movements. The first song ("No, thank you all the same.") explores the farmer's daughter's notions about the Squire and his marriage proposal. She also sings about the condescending nature of her father.
In the second movement ("Ah, ha! Is that what they are up to?"), the farmer's daughter hears about the wedding from the Squire's lad, as well as the deal that her father made. This song presents her bewilderment at the events that have unfolded. Yet, she tells the lad to take the bay mare out in the fields. The third movement (The Wedding) shows her speculating how the Squire will get ready for the marriage to his unassuming four-legged bride.