Ill fares the land

Willem Verkaik sets a powerful text by Oliver Goldsmith in this secular SATB madrigal. The words, taken from Goldsmith's poem The Deserted Village, lament the decline of a nation where material wealth grows at the expense of human virtue. Verkaik's setting, in English, captures the dramatic and cautionary tone of Goldsmith's famous lines, reflecting on the loss of a strong peasantry as the bedrock of a country's strength. This is a piece that demands a sensitive and articulate choir, bringing out the pathos and the grandeur of the sentiment. The SATTB voicing allows for rich harmonic colour and a full, resonant sound.