‘Come unto these yellow sands’ is a gentle, peaceful song. Woolfenden uses dotted rhythms to create a lilting quality, and accompanies the singer with slow chords in the harp part. He has open fifths in the bass of the harp which creates the impression of a drone, contributing to the pastoral effect of the song. The most striking part of the song comes at the end, at the cry of ‘Cockadiddle-dow’. This is set to a short musical motif shared between Ariel and the piccolo part which is repeated over and over again, making it seem as though there are many different singers and instruments suddenly joining in. The fullness of the musical setting is added to by trills in the clarinet, bassoon, and horn parts, with the oboe mimicking part of Ariel’s melody. Woolfenden also instructs the players to improvise a little at this point, allowing them to decide how to play the material and ensuring that it sounds like a spontaneous chorus of sound rather than a strictly planned piece of music. He’s trying to create a sense of the richness of the island, its inhabitants, and its noises.
