I Rise & Grieve - With Repeated Pleasure

Benjamin Perrot & Jeffrey Thompson

Of the French group La Rêveuse which includes the marvelously theatrical  American tenor Jeffrey Thompson I wrote about here last March when they were in Vancouver for an Early Music Vancouver concert.

In April I was driving my Malibu to Portland on my way to photograph baroque violinist Monica Hugget. In my car’s sound system I was playing a La Rêveuse CD dedicated entirely to English composer Henry Lawes. It was a second experience which lacked (a tad) the physical presence of the four performers. Luckily with a combination of memory and imagination they were almost with me in my car. In reality since I don't have a sunroof my Malibu could not  have possibly accommodated Benjamin Perrot long-necked theorbo.

At age 72 you would think that I would  be freed of that youthful desire to wear out 45 rpm singles (Diana!), or a slightly more mature over and over repetition of Stan Getz playing Desafinado with Charlie Byrd. And, slightly more recently, humming Nick Lowe’s Cruel to Be Kind while pruning my roses in March. But that has not been the case. Today after my wife, daughter Hilary and granddaughter Lauren finished seeing Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 film Don’t Look Now (set in Venice) and a beautiful documentary on the American Ballet Theatre on PBS I took mother and daughter home. Playing in the car, over and over was track 6, Henry Lawes' I rise and grieve.

I felt as if I were a young man full of desire, romance and exuberance although you might note that the lyrics that accompany the haunting melody are not exactly happy.

On the way we picked up my other granddaughter Rebecca who inquired if the singer was singing in German. It was Lauren who said, “Didn’t you hear him say 'I rise and grieve, I walk and see my sorrow?'”

You can never tell if the American Ballet Theatre documentary or Henry Lawes as performed by La Rêveuse will leave a lasting impression on my two granddaughters. I can only hope that some day, before they are 72, that they, too, will find the excitement of that song, one that is indelible in my memory.

I find it almost refreshing to point out that there is no YouTube version of the song so if anybody who reads this is curious the only solution is to buy the CD. Mirare Mir 177.

I Rise And Grieve -  Henry Lawes (5 December 1595 – 21 October 1662)

I rise and grieve

I rise and grieve,

I walk and see my sorrow,

I eat, I live

Perchance not till tomorrow.

I lay me down to rest and then again

I rise, I walk, I feed and lie in pain

Mend thou my state

O Jove, I thee implore,

Or end by fate

What thou hast made before.

If I but close

The covers of my sight,

Then slumb’ring woes

With dreams my sleeps affright;

And if awake I seek to ease my mind,

Some new bred cares my troubled

thoughts do find.

Mend thou my state

O Jove, I thee implore,

Or end by fate

What thou hast made before.

Or if it be

Thy will I should endure

What unto me

Is almost past recure,

Give me but strength to undergo

those pains

Which like a torrent runs through my veins;

Or mend my state,

Which as my days do fade;

Or end by fate

What thou before hast made.

Manuscript of I rise and grieve in Henry Lawes' hand