"Remember" [Benjamin Louis Mawson]

"Remember" [Benjamin Louis Mawson]

First line of lyrics: Remember me when I am gone away

Mawson, Benjamin Louis; music (English)

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

2011 [publication] [copyright]

genre: song

chorus: SATB chorus

instrumentation: a cappella

initial sharps/flats: no sharps or flats

initial time signature: 4/4

origin: United Kingdom

male composer

English

Rossetti poem(s): "Remember"

Composition history: "Christina Rossetti's poem "Remember" has resonated in my subconscious for many years until something now forgotten prompted me to investigate setting it for choir. The first two phrases emerged spontaneously: what followed came through forward backward struggles at the piano. It is a song of hope in the face of near despair. The desire to create a score that was clear for the competent amateur led to a number of transcription decisions. First was simplification of rhythm and metre from the manuscript's poly-rhythms. Accidentals in this shifting chromaticism were written with horizontal rather than vertical logic, for clarity to readers of individual parts. From the plaintiff plea of the first words in a separating unison F, briefly an ambivalent D minor, it fluctuates and wavers towards the rising last phrase, into the ether of a second inversion major sixth in E." (Mawson)

Tempo markings: "Remote, mournful; rising to joy"; quarter note = 96

Performance instructions: "Setting for large choir" (Mawson)

Format 1: musical score

4 pages; performance time 3 minutes and 40 seconds

Other data reference(s): Mawson, Benjamin. "Christina Rossetti's 'Remember.'" Benjamin Mawson, http://benmawson.com/music/remember.htm. Accessed 30 March 2019.

Cataloguer: Robyn Finlay and Emily McConkey, University of Ottawa

musical score: Mawson, Benjamin. "Christina Rossetti's 'Remember.'" Benjamin Mawson, http://benmawson.com/music/remember.htm. 30 March 2019.

Record: CRM-remember-mawson

File(s): CRM-remember-mawson.pdf

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