Prosegue con l'amatissima I See Thy Form la pubblicazione di materiali nella preziosa serie The Westbrook Songbook curata da Chris Topley presso il sito web dei Westbrook in collegamento diretto con Bandcamp, da cui di volta in volta si possono acquisire partiture per voce e pianoforte, file audio di riferimento, testi e ulteriori informazioni. In questo caso il poema di William Blake - tratto dalle cento tavole di Jerusalem, adattato da Adrian Mitchell - è preso dal 45 giri pubblicato nel 1980 da Original Records, dove era in coppia con A Poison Tree, in una versione leggermente diversa da quella dell'album capolavoro Bright as Fire.
The song writing partnership of composer Mike Westbrook and vocalist/librettist Kate Westbrook began in the 1970s with their award-winning jazz cabaret Mama Chicago. This was the first in a long succession of touring theatre shows with their own ensembles or collaborations in theatre, dance, opera and television. They have composed original song cycles about artists, notably the oratorio Turner in Uri. Other works are concerned with contemporary issues, as in their political fable The Serpent Hit, and in Earth Felt The Wound, about the environment. Operas for the stage include Coming Through Slaughter, Jago, Cape Gloss and for television Good Friday 1663. They have generated a number of large-scale concert works for jazz and classical ensembles, involving settings of European poetry, among them The Westbrook Blake, The Cortège and London Bridge is Broken Down. From these projects, The Westbrook Songbook aims to create a collection of individual songs. Each recording is accompanied by an arrangement for voice and piano. At regular intervals on the WestbrookJazz website, song copies plus recordings will be available as a pdf for download via Bandcamp.
In the opacous Bosom of the Sleeper, lovely, threefold
In Head and Heart and Reins, three Universes of love and beauty.
Thy forehead bright, Holiness to the Lord! with gates of pearl
Reflects Eternity beneath thy azure wings of feathery down,
Ribb’d, delicate, and cloth’d with feather’d gold and azure and purple,
From thy white shoulders shadowing purity in holiness;
Thence, feather’d with soft crimson of the ruby, bright as fire,
Spreading into the azure wings which, like a canopy,
Bends over thy immortal Head in which Eternity dwells.