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- Julian Philips
Love Songs of Amy Lowell (2011)
- Peters Edition Limited (World)
Commissioned by Presteigne Festival of Music with funding from the Arts Council of Wales
First performance: 26 August 2011 by Helen-Jane Howells, soprano and Huw Watkins, piano as part of the 2011 Presteigne Fesival
Programme Note
Love Songs of Amy Lowell (2011)
for voice and piano
1. The Bungler
2. Opal
3. Bullion
4. Giver of Stars
5. A Gift
Completed in July 2011, Love Songs of Amy Lowell sets a sequence of five poems by the idiosyncratic Bostonian poet, Amy Lowell (1874-1925). Dealing with the dark side of love, most of Lowell’s poems are short and fleeting assembled here to form a short song-cycle that presents snapshots of often bitter experience. The overriding tone is feverish and troubled, with only the fourth song – Giver of Stars – breaking the prevailing mood. This impassioned love song transforms Lowell’s highly coloured poetic images into a sustained soprano line coloured by intricate shifting piano textures.
Julian Philips, 2023