When daffodils begin to peer

This is my setting of a Shakespearian song, sung by the rogue peddler and thief Autolycus in Act IV, Scene 3 of The Winter's Tale, which celebrates the arrival of spring, vagabond life, petty thievery and lovers tumbling in the hay!

Shakespeare's Lines
When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! the doxy over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.
The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.
The lark, that tirra-lyra chants,
With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
While we lie tumbling in the hay.

Key Vocabulary and Meaning

• Peer: To appear or emerge (as daffodils sprout).

• Doxy: A rogue's female companion, sweetheart, or mistress.

• Dale: A valley.

• Sweet o' the year: Springtime.

• Winter's pale: The paleness of winter, or the boundary/enclosure (pale) of winter's dominion, now overtaken by the "red blood" of vitality.

• White sheet bleaching on the hedge: Linen hung outside on hedges to dry and bleach in the sun—a prime target for Autolycus to steal.

• Pugging tooth: Thieving or pilfering appetite (prigging/pugging meaning to steal).

• Aunts: Early modern slang for mistresses, prostitutes, or female companions.

• Tumbling in the hay: Sexual play or outdoor dalliance.

Core Theme & Context

The song marks the shift in The Winter's Tale from the tragic, cold atmosphere of the early acts to the vibrant, pastoral comedy of Bohemia. Autolycus uses nature’s revival to justify his own appetites: spring brings back warmth, songbirds, sexual energy, and laundry left out on hedges to steal.

Modern Translation
When spring daffodils start to sprout and appear,
(With a cheerful cry!) my sweetheart is coming over the valley,
Well, that is when the best, most delightful season (spring) begins;
Because youthful vitality and passion take over, driving away the pale cold of winter.
The linen sheets hung out on hedges to dry and bleach in the sun,
(With a cheerful cry!) listen to how beautifully the wild birds sing!
Sharpens my thieving appetite (tempting me to steal that linen);
Because selling stolen goods buys a pint of beer, fit for a king.
The skylark, singing its musical tirra-lyra song,
(With a cheerful cry!) along with the song thrush and the jay,
Provide the summer soundtrack for me and my female companions,
As we roll around and fool about together in the hayfields.

Composition and production process

I composed this in staffpad, using the Spitfire Symphonic Strings library with a double cello section. To give an expressive-sounding voice line, just while composing, I used a trombone from the Spitfire Symphonic Brass Library as there are no solo male voices available in the StaffPad libraries.  To speed things up, rather than typing the lyrics in, I just wrote them freehand above the vocal line: 

I then exported the score as stems to ace Studio. Ace studio is a digital audio workstation that has AI singers and instruments available. I used a selection of AI singers for this, mostly operatic males, which I blended together to make a baritone voice that I thought suited the piece. 

All the AI singers or AI instruments are only there to play the music. Every single note, articulation, expression, and dynamics are composed by me. There's no AI composition involved in this piece (or any of my pieces). Also, the AI singers are contracted to train the AI to reproduce their voices, and they get royalties when they're utilised in the programme. 

In ace studio, I typed in the words for every note that the baritone was singing, sometimes making them slightly phonetic to make it sound right. There are a number of control curves inside the ace DAW, so you can control things like the dynamics, energy, tension, etc. to hone the singing to how you want:

You can also adjust the vibrato in all kinds of ways, the amount of breathiness, pretty much anything you need:

I then exported the baritone line and the orchestral line as separate stems (i.e., wav files) to another DAW (Reaper), to do a bit more fine-tuning of the expression, as there seemed to be a bit of a limit to how far I could push it in ace DAW. 

I then sent the baritone and strings stems to a video editing programme (Lumafusion) on iPad. I did a final bit of balancing between the baritone and the strings there and added video and images. Most of the video and images I found within the libraries in Luma Fusion itself, but some of what I needed were very specific, so I generated a few images and short bits of video with Gemini.