Five Childhood Lyrics

Five Childhood Lyrics is a choral composition by John
Rutter, who set ve texts, poems and nursery rhymes,
for four vocal parts (SATB with some divisi) a cap-
pella.[1] Rutter composed the work for the London Con-
cord Singers who rst performed them in 1973.[2]
[2]
The ve movements are:
1. Mondays Child
[2] Bawden, John. Five Childhood Lyrics (PDF). directo-
ryofchoralmusic.co.uk. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
[3] Fancies. Hyperion Records. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
[4] Steane, John (2002). Rutter I My Best Loveds Am.
Gramophone. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
[5] Vernier, David. Rutter I My Best Loveds Am. Classics
Today. Retrieved 18 August 2014.

[6] John Rutter / Five Childhood Lyrics. Oxford University

2. The Owl and the Pussycat Press. Retrieved 6 July 2016.
3. Windy Nights [7] Five Childhood Lyrics. Oxford University Press. 1974.

4. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John [8] The title derives from Shakespeares Loves Labours Lost,
v.2.
5. Sing a Song of Sixpence

The rst song is based on "Mondays Child", a fortune-

telling song and nursery rhyme. The text of the second
song is "The Owl and the Pussycat", a nonsense-poem by
Edward Lear published in 1871. The third song is based
on a poem, "Windy Nights", by Robert Louis Stevenson.
The text for the fourth song is "Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John", a nursery rhyme and evening prayer. The fth song
uses the nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence". The
composer noted: The Five Childhood lyrics are a kind
of 'homage' to the world of children. I chose for my texts
some of the rhymes and verses remembered from my ear-
liest years, and set them to music as simply as I could
though the last of the ve, which uses a familiar nurs-
ery tune, contains a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek
elaboration.[3] The pieces were described by a reviewer
for Gramophone as delightful compositions,[4] while
another reviewer noted the energy and sharp-witted in-
vention that characterize these youthful pieces.[5] The
work was rst published in 1974 by Oxford University
Press.[6][7]
The songs were recorded in a collection of Rutters secu-
lar works titled Fancies, performed under his direction by
the Cambridge Singers, together with the summer songs
of the same name, the winter songs When Icicles Hang,[8]
and the instrumental Suite Antique.[1] They were recorded
in 2002 on an album of secular music by Rutter, with
Nicol Matt conducting the Nordic Chamber Choir.[4]

1 References
[1] Fancies. collegium.co.uk. Retrieved 13 August 2014.

1
2 2 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

2 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

2.1 Text
Five Childhood Lyrics Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Childhood_Lyrics?oldid=800432458 Contributors: Wetman, The
Rambling Man, Bencherlite, Gerda Arendt and Usernameunique

2.2 Images

2.3 Content license

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