John mi vida, white-hot flame of my heart: In celebration of your latest award, I’m serenading you tonight with a song I know you know, because you’ve played it and I’ve sung it, and somewhere in that magical Music Room out there, you and I are playing and singing it together.

My John Wins Another AwardAbove John, his award, and a Chandos exec: Eric Coates’s enduring 1926 sheet music hit, “Bird Songs at Eventide” sung by Liverpool-born mezzo Kathryn Rudge, played by RAM professor James Baillieu.

Here also are the lyrics, which were written by the father of your old housemate: 

Over the quiet hills 
Slowly the shadows fall; 
Far down the echoing vale 
Birds softly call; 
Slowly the golden sun 
Sinks in the dreaming west; 
Bird songs at eventide 
Call me to rest.

Love, though the hours of day 
Sadness of heart may bring, 
When twilight comes again 
Sorrows take wing; 
For when the dusk of dreams 
Comes with the falling dew, 
Bird songs at eventide 
Call me to you.

~Harry Rodney Bennett (1890-1948), writing as Royden Barrie

Listen to John’s new orchestra the SINFONIA OF LONDON here

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