"Song" [Henry Mollicone]

"Song" [Henry Mollicone]

First line of lyrics: When I am dead, my dearest

Part of: "Five Love Songs"

Mollicone, Henry; music (American, born 1946)

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

2009 [publication] [copyright]

Boston: ECS Publishing

genre: song|song cycle

solo: soprano

instrumentation: piano

initial sharps/flats: one flat

initial time signature: 4/4

origin: United States

male composer

English

Rossetti poem(s): "Song" ("When I am dead, my dearest")

Place in the larger work: The fifth song of five in the song cycle called "Five Love Songs," which includes 1. "First Time He Kissed Me" (Elizabeth Barrett Browning); 2. "The Face of All the World" (Elizabeth Barrett Browning); 3. "Doctor Fell" (Thomas Brown); 4. "May's Love" (Elizabeth Barrett Browning); 5. "Song" (Christina Rossetti).

Composition history: "Love songs are fun to compose—they are, after all, based upon something which almost everyone has experienced. Five Love Songs was written for my dear longtime friend, operative soprano Maria Spacagna. Maria, who has been enjoying a very successful operatic career, requested that I compose something expressly for her. Being familiar with her rich soprano voice since I was very young, I'd been looking forward to finding time to satisfy her request. When the time finally came in 2000, I selected poems dealing with both the pleasurable and the painful experiences of love, experiences that Maria and I have sometimes shared as friends. (A very meaningful moment in my life was accompanying Maria in Schubert's Ave Maria at my mother's funeral. Having made music together in my mother's presence so often in our youth, it was hard for both of us to hold back the tears.) The poems I selected all share a keen ability to express with great beauty the universal aspects of our experiences with love."

Tempo markings: quarter note = 60

Performance instructions: "Quietly"

Dedication: "for Maria Spacagna"

Format 1: musical score

3 pages (pp. 20-22); performance time 2 minutes and 4 seconds; complete song cycle performance time 9 minutes and 44 seconds.

Cataloguer: Emily McConkey, University of Ottawa

musical score: New York Public Library, New York

Record: CRM-songwheniamdead-mollicone

"© Copyright 2009 by Ione Press. A division of ECS Publishing, Boston, Massachusetts. All rights reserved. Made in U.S.A."

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