What is it?

Crossing the Bar is a setting of the poem by the same name by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The fifth of the five songs that comprise my song cycle Idylls, it is available in two versions: the first for solo soprano and piano, the second for mixed choir (SATB) and piano. Intensely emotional and yet tranquil, the melody has a distinctly Celtic feel. The piano part mimics with uncanny accuracy the lapping of waves on a beach shoreline. It starts in B-flat major and continues in that key until the words “face to face” in the last verse. At this point the music moves abruptly into D-flat major and the piano drops nearly two octaves. The effect is of a sudden and profound sense of peace “when I have crost the bar”.

The idea of writing a set of songs for tenor and piano, based on Tennyson’s poems, had first occurred to me in 1986. 'Crossing the Bar' was the first such song to be completed. It appealed to me because of its intensely spiritual overtones and the impressions that it evokes of waves lapping on sand and shingle, which is what inspired the piano introduction. The melody has a Celtic feel to it, because at the end of the day I am Cornish.

I grew up with the sea nine miles to the northwest and seven miles to the southeast. My mother came from St Ives and my father from Penzance. So I know the sea, its rhythms and its moods. This is one of my personal favourites among my compositions, possibly because it is so reminiscent of the place where I grew up. It is simple, soulful and all the more effective for it.