Three Walter Scott Lyrics
A song cycle with words taken from Sir Walter Scott’s poems, written for mezzo-soprano and piano
On the theme of life and death
“The Heart of Midlothian” is regarded as Sir Walter Scott’s finest novel, the seventh of his series of Waverley novels. The story is written in several parts begining with the Porteous Riots in Edinburgh where a condemed criminal, Andrew Wilson, helps his accomplice ‘Roberston’ to escape. This man turns out to be a reckless nobleman, George Staunton, whose earlier mistreatment of his mistress Madge Wildfire leads to her insanity.
“The Bride of Lammermoor” is a historical novel and tells of the tragic love between Lucy Ashton and Edgar Ravenswood. Donizetti used the story as the basis of his opera “Lucia di Lammermoor”.
Madge Wildfire's deathbed
The Heart of Midlothian
Scott describes Madge as “a tall, strapping wench of eighteen or twenty, dressed fantastically, in a sort of blue riding-jacket, with tarnished lace, her hair clubbed like that of a man, a Highland bonnet, and a bunch of broken feathers, a riding-skirt (or petticoat) of scarlet camlet, embroidered with tarnished flowers.”
Her death in Carlisle is the result of an attack by a lynch mob.
Lucy Ashton's song
A poem by written by Scott, it is referenced in E. M. Forster’s novel “A Room with a View”, where the protagonist, Lucy Honeychurch, resigns herself to never marrying.
Madge Wildfire's song
The Heart of Midlothian
The last of many snatches of songs she sings in the novel.
