Get all 8 The Marais Project releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Australian Monody, Two, Smörgåsbord!, The Garden Party, Spinning Forth, Mara! meets Marais, Lady Sings the Viol, and Love Reconciled.
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Precious Colours (Pallah-Pallah) (How the opal came to be, as told by the late Auntie June Barker)
Text by Alice Chance/June Barker
Pallah-Pallah, where did your precious colours go?
Pallah-Pallah, your wings used to be a rainbow.
Ballah-Ballah, where did my precious colours go?
Ballah-Ballah, my wings used to be a rainbow.
I see the opal shining bright with the river flowing over.
The beauty of your wings may be gone but remember you're still my Pallah-Pallah.
My colours sinking down into the riverbed.
My colours sinking down, living on forever.
Your colours captured in a stone, frozen, you will live on.
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Lullaby for a Broken World
Text by Susie Bishop
Lu-do-lai, lu-do-lai, lay down your head,
may your dreams keep you safe in your bed.
Lu-do-lai, let thee lie, restful at least for some time;
May your dreams not carry the weight of the waking world,
best that you should tarry a while, sleeping…sleeping.
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Michael Nyman - If
03:30
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If
Text by Roger Pulvers
If at the sound of a wish
The summer sun would shine
And if just a smile would do
To brush all the clouds from the sky
If at the blink of an eye
The autumn leaves would whirl
And if you could sigh a deep sigh
To scatter them over the earth
I'd blink my eyes
And wave my arms
I'd wish a wish
To stop all harm
If at the wave of a hand
The winter snows would start
And if you could just light a candle
To change people's feelings and hearts
I'd whisper love
In every land
To every child
Woman and man
That's what I'd do
If my wishes would come true
That's what I'd do
If my wishes could come true
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Christchurch Monody
I returned and saw that the race is not to the swift,
nor bread to the wise.
nor favour to them of skill.
As fishes are taken in an evil net
and birds are caught in the snare
so are the children of men snared in the evil time.
Ecclesiastes 9:11-12
But the souls of the righteous
are in the hand of God
there shall no torment touch them.
They are at peace,
and in the day of their visitation
they shall shine and run to and fro
like sparks among the stubble
for such as be faithful in love
shall abide in him.
Wisdom 3: 1, 3, 7, 9
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The Aboriginal Father
A native Song of the Maneroo Tribe. Versified by Eliza Hamilton Dunlop.
The Shadow on thy brow, my child,
Like a mist o'er the clear Lagoon,
Steals on with presage, dim and wild
Of the death clouds' direful gloom.
Our Tribes droop by each Native stream
Where the founts which have fed them lie;
And White Man's fire sends forth its gleam,
O'er the Batwan where they die.
And thou my boy! the last - the first -
Green leaf of a smouldering tree!
A stranger's eye will crush the burst,
Of a Warrior's lament o'er thee.
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The Aboriginal Mother (from Myall’s Creek)
Text by Eliza Hamilton Dunlop. First published in The Australian 13 December 1838. The original poem consists of nine verses. The composer, Isaac Nathan set stanzas 1, 2, 3 and 8.
Oh! hush thee, hush my baby - I may not tend thee yet,
Our forest home is distant far, and midnight's star is set.
Now, hush thee or the pale-faced men will hear thy piercing wail,
And what would then thy mother's tears, or feeble strength avail!
Ah! could thy little bosom that mother's torture feel,
Or could'st thou know thy father lies struck down by English steel;
Thy tender form would wither, like the kniven on the sand,
And the spirit of my perished Tribe would vanish from our land.
For thy young life my precious, I fly the field of blood!
Else had I, for my chieftain's sake, defied them where they stood;
But basely bound my woman's arm, no weapon might it wield:
I could but cling round him I loved, to make my heart a shield.
Oh, hush thee dear, for weary and faint I bear thee on:
His name is on thy gentle lips, my child, my child, he's gone!
Gone o'er the golden fields that lie beyond the rolling cloud,
To bring thy people's murder cry, before the Christian's God.
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Elegy on the death of Queen Mary
Translation
O God, guardian of the House of Orange,
and surer hope of fleeting power,
O you who should be invoked in adversity,
O divine ornament in prosperity
– whether the eager choir of Oxford by the river Isis calls on you in prayer of they who are washed by the swift stream of the distant Cam
– come down from heaven to visit with your help the palace not thus entrusted,
come down and visit the chapel of our Monarch and the sacred chamber.
Mary is dying, lamented by the Muses, short-lived darling of her people,
O weep for Mary, O weep you Muses, O weep you Goddesses,
Weep for the dying divinity
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An Evening Hymn
Now, now that the sun hath veil’d his light
And bid the world goodnight;
To the soft bed my body I dispose,
But where shall my soul repose?
Dear, dear God, even in Thy arms,
And can there be any so sweet security!
Then to thy rest, O my soul!
And singing, praise the mercy
That prolongs thy days
Hallelujah!
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Now O Now I Needs Must Part
Now, O now, I needs must part,
Parting though I absent mourne.
Absence can no joye impart,
Joye once fled cannot returne.
While I live I needs must love;
Love lives not when hope is gone.
Now at last despayre doth prove
Love divided loveth none.
Sad despaire doth drive me hence;
This despaire unkindness sends.
If that parting be offence,
It is she that then offendes.
Deare, when I am from thee am gone,
Gone are all my joyes at once.
I loved thee and thee alone,
In whose love I joyed once.
And although your sight I leave,
Sight wherein my joyes doo lye,
Till that death do sense bereave
Never shall affection dye.
Sad despaire doth drive me hence;
This despaire unkindness sends.
If that parting be offence,
It is she that then offendes.
Deare, if I doe not returne,
Love and I shall die together;
For my absence never mourne,
Whom you might have joyed ever.
Part we must, though now I dye,
Die I do to part with you.
Him despayre doth cause to lie,
Who both lived and dieth true.
Sad despaire doth drive me hence;
This despaire unkindness sends.
If that parting be offence,
It is she that then offendes.
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Love Me Sweet
Text by Carl Vine
Love me sweet, with all your heart,
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me with your lightest glance,
Love me in full being.
Love me with your open arms,
In their frank surrender;
With the vowing of your lips,
in their silence tender.
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The Marais Project Sydney, Australia
Founded by Jennifer Eriksson in 2000 The Marais Project has a focus on the music written for the viola da gamba - both old and new. The ensemble has released 9 commercial CDs and present Australia's longest running viola da gamba recital series. In 2019 they celebrated their 20th anniversary. ... more
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