Christopher Churcher
by her that ys yowrs (2025)
for mezzo-soprano and piano
approx. duration: 7 minutes
composed for Bella Bartels and Ashley Wagner
My Lord I send you my most humble and hearty commendations, being desirous know how ye have done since I saw you. I pray you be not offended with me in that I send sooner to you than I said I would […] I would not have you to think that this mine honest goodwill towards you to proceed of any sudden motion or passion. For as truly as God is God, my mind was fully bent the other time I was at liberty to marry you before any man I knew. Howbeit, God withstood my will therein most vehemently for a time and, through His grace and goodness, made that possible which seemeth to me most unpossible […] If I live, I shall declare it to you myself. I can say nothing but, as my Lady of Suffolk saith, “God is a marvelous man.”
By her that is yours to serve and obey during her life,
Kateryn, the quene, KP
Catherine Parr (1512-1548)
Programme Note
This piece was written as a companion to Libby Larsen’s song cycle Try Me, Good King. Larsen’s cycle sets five texts drawn from the final letters and gallows speeches of the first five of Henry VIII’s first wives, but it omits the words of his sixth: Catherine Parr, who outlived him.
My song sets words from Parr’s letter to Lord Thomas Seymour dated February 1547. Seymour was Parr’s great, tragic love. Before Henry VIII caught her attention, she and Seymour had already fallen deeply in love, and Parr writes in this letter that she would have married him before the king had it not been for the will of God. After Henry’s death in January 1547, the newly widowed queen was at last free to determine her own future. She and Seymour soon reunited and secretly married.
Although Parr died not long afterwards, in 1548, my setting seeks to convey not only her turmoil and tribulation in overcoming adversity and negotiating the difficult position of Queen of England, but also the peace and happiness of having survived and emerged into a freer, happier life. Heard after Larsen’s cycle, it offers a gentle and reflective conclusion to the work.
