Four Songs on Nineteenth Century Texts

Notes

These songs were not composed in sequence, and may be performed either as a group or individually. If presented together, they form a kind of narrative not unlike that found in Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben cycle, except that the voice enlisted here is a tenor. Christina Rossetti’s poem is unspecific as to the gender of the person being addressed, who therefore can be plausibly imagined as the same figure invoked in the opening verses by Thomas Beddoes.