Bluebird

https://unsplash.com/@bgauzere
 

L'oiseau bleu

 
The lake lay blue below the hill.
O'er it, as I looked, there flew
Across the waters, cold and still,
A bird whose wings were palest blue.

The sky above was blue at last,
The sky beneath me blue in blue.
A moment, ere the bird had passed,
It caught his image as he flew.

 

by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

 

This year was the first time BBC Radio 3 presented a classical music set at Glastonbury. Click here if you would like to listen. Towards the end of the set presenter Georgia Mann plays two sublime 'bluebird tracks'. 

 

The first, Charles Villiers Stanford's 'The Blue Bird' (8 Partsongs Op.119), is a setting of the poem above. As Georgia says, it is 'dreamy, ethereal summer music'. Click here to listen. 

 

Pianist and composer Alexis Ffrench says his piece 'Bluebird': "is an expression of love and hope. I wanted to write something that expressed a certain innocence and purity. There's so much trauma around us right now, and I wanted to share a moment of calm, beauty and consolation; there isn't enough of that in the world." Click  here to listen.

Click here to find a moment of calm.

 

There are many songs written about bluebirds. Click here listen to Paul McCartney and Wings singing 'Bluebird' and here to listen to Emmylou Harris's 'If You Were a Bluebird'. 

 

With its theme of searching for the elusive bluebird of happiness, the play "The Blue Bird", by Maurice Maeterlinck was the inspiration for the naming of Donald Campbell's cars and hydroplanes. Child actress Shirley Temple starred in a rather bizarre, 1940 film version of the play. If you're interested, click here. (Apologies for having to skip through advertisements).

 

The bluebird is traditionally a symbol of happiness, hope and renewal; it is thought to be a messenger of joy and positive change. Remember Vera Lynn's WW11 song: "There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover tomorrow, just you wait and see." Or course we don't have bluebirds in the UK, but the symbolism is there. 

Writing prompts:

• Choose a clear, sunny day. Go outside, taking a pen and paper with you. Look up at the clear blue sky for a couple of minutes, then write whatever comes to mind.
• Listen to the pieces by Stanford and Ffrench (by clicking on the links above). As you listen, describe, in your writing, the pictures in your mind's eye.
• Click here to read about the psychology of the colour blue, then write about what the colour means to you. 
• Is there a bird, other than the bluebird, that for you symbolises joy and positivity? Describe that bird in your writing.