Blake’s poems express the love, or desire for connection that young children feel for baby animals—sheep, birds, and lambs. The first and fourth songs (Introduction and The Lamb) were composed in the mid-1980s, commissioned for young singers by the McCurdy Foundation. They have been performed by children—soloists and choirs alike—many times over the years. The Shepherd, The Blossom, and Spring were composed to complete the cycle much later, in 2019. The final movement of Mahler’s fourth symphony is marked Sehr behaglich. Mit kindlich heiterem Ausdruck! Durchaus ohne Parodie! (Very comfortable. With a childlike cheerful expression! Quite without parody!) My approach to Blake’s poetry is in keeping with this direction, so when setting the final poem in this cycle (Spring) I chose to parody this movement, which is a setting of the Wunderhorn poem Wir geniessen die himmlischen Freuden (We enjoy the heavenly pleasures). After all, Blake’s little lamb is simultaneously a figure of cuddling and a figure of Christ. The key to the cycle is to channel the innocence and simplicity of a child whose feelings of awe and wonder in the presence of vulnerable animals are quite as serious as those of an adult.
