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The first of these Three Love Songs was composed in March 2021 and is a setting of the poem “A Love Song” by American poet Theodosia Garrison from her 1917 book The Dreamers and Other Poems. My setting of “A Red, Red Rose” was composed almost entirely on Valentine’s Day 2021 and sets the famous poem by the 18th century Scottish poet Robert Burns.  And lastly, I composed “Again and Again” in 2016 which sets the poem “Immer Wieder” by Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke in my own translation from German.  These songs are all dedicated to my love and wife Diane.

“My Love It Should Be Silent” and “A Red, Red Rose” premiered April 15, 2021 by Jazmine Saunders-soprano, and the composer at the piano, at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY.

“Again and Again” premiered April 20, 2016 by Diane Southard-soprano, and the composer at the piano at Bennington College, Bennington, VT.

Text

1. My Love It Should Be Silent (originally entitled “A Love Song”)

My love it should be silent, being deep--
And being very peaceful should be still--
Still as the utmost depths of ocean keep--
Serenely silent as some mighty hill.

Yet is my love so great it needs must fill
With very joy the inmost heart of me,
The joy of dancing branches on the hill,
The joy of leaping waves upon the sea.

-Theodosia Garrison

2. A Red, Red Rose

 O my Luve is like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June;

O my Luve is like the melody

That’s sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

I will love thee still, my dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee well, my only Luve!

And fare thee well awhile!

And I will come again, my Luve,

Though it were ten thousand mile.

-Robert Burns

3. Again and Again (“Immer Wieder”)

Again and again, whether we know well the landscape of love
and the tiny cemetery with its plaintive names
and the terrible harboring canyon into with the others
fall: again and again we two go forth
under the old trees, again and again we rest
among the flowers, facing the sky.

-Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Keane Southard)