"Echo" [Michael Berkeley]

"Echo" [Michael Berkeley]

First line of lyrics: Come to me in the silence of the night

Part of: "Speaking Silence"

Berkeley, Michael; music (English, born 1948)

Rossetti, Christina Georgina; text (English, 1830-1894)

1986 [composition]

Oxford, New York: Music Department, Oxford University Press

genre: song|song cycle

solo: baritone

instrumentation: piano

initial sharps/flats: no sharps or flats

initial time signature: 3/4

other version 1 - solo: mezzo-soprano

other version 1 - instrumentation: harp

origin: United Kingdom

male composer

English

Rossetti poem(s): "Echo"

Place in the larger work: The second song of six in the song cycle "Speaking Silence" which includes 1. "Blow, northern wynd" (Anonymous); 2. "Echo" (Christina Rossetti); 3. "And is it night?" (Anonymous); 4. "The Ragged Wood" (W.B. Yeats); 5. "Pere du doux repos" (Pontus de Tyard [1521-1603]); 6. "Blow, northern wynd" (Anonymous).

Composition history: "'Speaking Silence' was originally written for the baritone David Wilson-Johnson."

Notes: "Speaking Silence" continues the theme of yearning and longing explored in Berkeley's previous song cycle "Songs of Awakening Love", which includes a setting of Christina Rossetti's "A Birthday". While "Songs of Awakening Love" explores first love, "Speaking Silence" comes at the end of the cycle of love.

Format 1: musical score

8 pages (pp. 4-11); complete song cycle performance time 20 minutes

Cataloguer: Diana Bishara and Roxanne Lafleur, University of Ottawa

musical score: Berkeley, Micheal. "Echo." Speaking Silence. Oxford University Press, pp. 4-11. University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.

Record: CRM-echo-berkeley

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