Programme Note
Remember Me was commissioned by the Ida Carroll Trust for the 80th birthday celebrations of Sir John Manduell.
The composer writes: “I have always thought of Christina Rossetti’s moving poem Remember as a love poem, albeit a rather sad and thoughtful one. The combination I was asked to write for is an unusual one, but offers a composer a chance to create a particular sound world, something I have tried to achieve. I have followed the structure of the poem, a Petrarchan sonnet published in 1879, by setting the first eight lines rather ‘darkly’, but mirroring in the ensuing six lines the rather transforming change of mood; thus the music moves from darkness to light, one of the recurring musical gestures in my recent music.”
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