Charms to Music
(2008-10)
Duration: 12′
Description
Six songs for soprano and piano
Music, thou Queen of Souls (Thomas Randolph)
For Music (Lord Byron)
Bells of Grey Crystal (Edith Sitwell)
What Would I Give (Christina Rossetti)
To Music, to becalm a sweet, sick youth (Robert Herrick)
Song (from The Second Brother) (Thomas Lovell Beddoes)
First performance (complete): 27 February 2011, Charmian Bedford (soprano)/Richard Shaw (piano), Royal Academy of Music, London, UK
Published by Music Haven
Music, thou Queen of Souls available on the ‘NMC Songbook’ CD: click here for more information. The sheet music can be purchased separately for download at Musicroom.com: click here for more information.
Listen to “For Music” (below) performed by Anna Patalong (soprano) and Elizabeth Rossiter (piano).
Charms to Music
Reviews
“…Lloyd Moore’s ‘Music, thou Queen of Souls’ [gave] a lyrical and passionate platform to [soprano] Ailish Tynan…”
(Stephen Graham, Musical Criticism)
“The British composer Lloyd Moore has produced a most enticing song cycle that deserves to be popular. His musical language is immediately engaging, open and spontaneous, yet with meticulous attention to detail … The vocal writing is clear and fluent, with a pleasing directness. Moore has succeeded in finding an apt, well-balanced voice–piano relationship for each song. The piano writing is full of interest: repetitive figures feature frequently and sonorities veer from darkly sensuous harmonies to moments of glittering brightness … everything is practical and precisely imagined.”
(Jane Manning, Vocal Repertoire for the 21st Century)
Programme Note
The idea of composing a set of songs for voice and piano was prompted by the first of them, Music, thou Queen of Souls, which was originally written for the NMC Songbook CD project in 2008. After writing it, I felt strongly that this single item needed some company and so, at intervals over the next couple of years, I added a further five songs to form a cycle of settings of texts by English poets.
This is a sample only. Click here to order the complete score from Music Haven.