"Remember" [Steve Locks]
Title
"Remember" [Steve Locks]
First line of lyrics: Remember me
Creator
Locks, Steve; music (British, born 1964)
Rossetti, Christina Georgina; text (English, 1830-1894)
Date
2019 [composition] [publication]
Publisher
Stephen Mark Locks
Subject
genre: song
solo: soprano
instrumentation: orchestra
initial sharps/flats: four flats
initial time signature: 2/2
origin: United Kingdom
male composer
Language
English
Description
Rossetti poem(s): "Remember"
Composition history: "I was at a local concert and hadn't seen the program beforehand so I was pleasantly surprised to see the soloist in Berlioz Les nuits d'ete was a friend. I knew she was a singer but didn't know she did solo work and I heard later this was the first time she had sung with an orchestra. I was sitting right at the front and was only a few feet from her. When she spotted me she gave me her water bottle to look after which she swigged from between movements. I'd not heard this piece before and was very impressed both with the performance and the composition. (It is only a small amateur orchestra but they played very well).
When I got home I listened to the Berlioz again with the score and thought it sounded very advanced for its time and for being an early opus number. I thought I could see presaged in it elements that would be well developed by the great late romantic composers of big orchestral songs.
About a year previously I'd sketched the opening 90 seconds of a setting of Christina Rossetti's "Remember" for soprano and string orchestra. At the time this was for a competition but I was too busy then to spend enough time on it so I'd put it to one side, much as I'd liked the opening and had the feeling I should do something with it eventually.
After hearing the Berlioz I was inspired to pick this sketch up again, to orchestrate it for the same small orchestra I'd just heard and to finish it off, which took just a week to do (in a few evenings) as I felt quite driven to write this and had a compelling feeling for how it should go.
I'm familiar with the orchestral songs of Finzi, R. Strauss, Mahler and Schoenberg's Gurrelieder and I feel there are touches of some of these influences in this piece. Although the poem is about loss through death it is also quite life affirming, so I wanted to reflect that. It starts quite plaintively where the poem asks the surviving loved one to remember the other when dead but then later asks not to grieve or to remember if that causes suffering.
You'll notice the score includes words in italics near the end for some instrumental parts. This is not for then to sing but to remind them that the motifs they are playing at the end are from the "do not grieve" section (the "do not grieve"section was from a little sketch I made separately months ago and thought I must use this in something). I felt including the do not grieve music within the finishing words "Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad" worked within the sense of the poem to round the music off (and made for some nice gentle suspensions). Earlier I also I couldn't resist using the half octave changing direction on the words "half turn".
Most of my music is pretty light-hearted and I wanted to try something serious for a change, so this is it" (Locks).
When I got home I listened to the Berlioz again with the score and thought it sounded very advanced for its time and for being an early opus number. I thought I could see presaged in it elements that would be well developed by the great late romantic composers of big orchestral songs.
About a year previously I'd sketched the opening 90 seconds of a setting of Christina Rossetti's "Remember" for soprano and string orchestra. At the time this was for a competition but I was too busy then to spend enough time on it so I'd put it to one side, much as I'd liked the opening and had the feeling I should do something with it eventually.
After hearing the Berlioz I was inspired to pick this sketch up again, to orchestrate it for the same small orchestra I'd just heard and to finish it off, which took just a week to do (in a few evenings) as I felt quite driven to write this and had a compelling feeling for how it should go.
I'm familiar with the orchestral songs of Finzi, R. Strauss, Mahler and Schoenberg's Gurrelieder and I feel there are touches of some of these influences in this piece. Although the poem is about loss through death it is also quite life affirming, so I wanted to reflect that. It starts quite plaintively where the poem asks the surviving loved one to remember the other when dead but then later asks not to grieve or to remember if that causes suffering.
You'll notice the score includes words in italics near the end for some instrumental parts. This is not for then to sing but to remind them that the motifs they are playing at the end are from the "do not grieve" section (the "do not grieve"section was from a little sketch I made separately months ago and thought I must use this in something). I felt including the do not grieve music within the finishing words "Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad" worked within the sense of the poem to round the music off (and made for some nice gentle suspensions). Earlier I also I couldn't resist using the half octave changing direction on the words "half turn".
Most of my music is pretty light-hearted and I wanted to try something serious for a change, so this is it" (Locks).
Tempo markings: half note = 50
Performance instructions: For orchestra (individual parts provided for flute, oboe, clarinet (in b flat), bassoon, horn (in F), trumpet (in b flat), timpani, violin, viola, violoncello, and double bass)
Recordings: "Steve Locks Remember." Lyrics by Christina Rossetti, performance by Computer Simulation. 2019. IMSLP, https://imslp.org/wiki/Remember_(Locks%2C_Stephen_Mark)
Format
Format 1: musical score
49 pages (complete score and parts); performance time 6-7 minutes
Source
Reference: IMSLP Petrucci Music Library, http://imslp.org/
Other data reference(s): Locks, Steve. "Remember", Steve Locks Compositions, https://sites.google.com/view/stevelockscompositions/home/remember.
Cataloguer: Emily Lapen and Emily McConkey, University of Ottawa
musical score: IMSLP Petrucci Music Library, https://imslp.org/wiki/Remember_(Locks%2C_Stephen_Mark). Accessed 2019.
Identifier
Record: CRM-remember-locks
File(s): CRM-remember-locks.pdf
Rights
"Remember" [source: https://imslp.org/wiki/Remember_(Locks%2C_Stephen_Mark)] by Stephen Mark Locks [https://sites.google.com/site/stevelocks/music], is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. The work appears here unmodified.
The Christina Rossetti in Music project website is hosted in Canada at the University of Ottawa Library, and we aim to comply with Canadian copyright laws. If you believe we have violated Canadian copyright law, please contact us at christinarossettimusic@uottawa.ca. The Christina Rossetti in Music project is strictly not for profit and intended for research and educational purposes only.
Files
Collection
Citation
Locks, Steve; music (British, born 1964) and Rossetti, Christina Georgina; text (English, 1830-1894), “"Remember" [Steve Locks],” Christina Rossetti In Music, accessed September 19, 2024, http://omeka.uottawa.ca/christinarossettiinmusic/items/show/2438.