About the Work

Down By the Salley Gardens has long been one of my favorite folk tunes. When William Butler Yeats published the poem in 1889, the original name of the poem was An Old Song Resung, until it was changed to its current title upon republishing in 1895. In keeping with the poem’s original title, I believe Yeats accomplished his goal of what he described as “reconstruct[ing] an old song from three lines imperfectly remembered.” The poem is folkloric storytelling of young love and employs his stylistic imagery of the English countryside to do so.

I primarily aimed to preserve the peacefulness of Yeats’s text and the adjoined folk tune. Still, new harmonies and climactic moments within this arrangement make it an engaging and rewarding piece for any tenor-bass choir.

-Blake