''THE TRAVELLER" (Track 16)

by Walter de la Mare

 

 

Interpreted by Kaya Anderson

 

Paul and Clara Silber came to dinner one evening and Paul said he would like to play me a tape recording. A voice begins a mysterious poem. I listen in amazement, for it sounds like my voice. "Is it my voice? Yes, it is my voice! It's good!" This poem "The Listeners'' by Walter de la Mare, was recorded in 1964.

At that time I was working with Roy just after Alfred Wolfsohn's death, I expressed this lose by calling out "Is there anybody there? said the Traveller, knocking on the moonlit door.... " as a deep and urgent message that the Traveller offers to the supernatural forces. The gripped and yearning voice reveals my own need to be heard. "I kept my word" shows that my whole body is involved in this delivery. I felt these sounds created by the house, the silent ghostly listeners, the grounds, the trees, the horse and rider. Roy's voice suggesting to 'change to tenor' was timely and helped me break through the ghostliness!

I remember how frequently we of the Roy Hart Theatre missed listening to the playbacks of our voices, because of being so consistently involved in new research. So, thanks to Paul's patient work of transferring many of our old recordings onto modern C.D.'s, we are able to listen to them all again.

During all these years and including now in 2007, we have taught thousands of people around the world to discover and affirm themselves through their voices. We have performed, lectured, researched our own pathways towards re-connecting the voice back to the emotions forming a union between human and artistic achievements. Many of our pupils and ex-pupils who have sung with us will recognise the kinds of sounds that I use in working this piece of poetry.

Malérargues 2007

Index page of Dorothy Hart and her fellow women soloists