Christopher Churcher
Echo (2022)
for SSAATTBB voices
approx. duration: 7 minutes
composed for Voces8
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.
Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again tho’ cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago.
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Programme Note
Originally written for VOCES8 (but equally suited to SSAATTBB voices), Echo sets Christina Rossetti’s poignant eponymous poem, meditating on an aching longing to reunite with a lost loved one. The three stanzas are set as individual verses; each with sensitivity to the tonal shifts throughout the poem. The intimate third verse invites the voice of the persona to speak directly through three solo voices, accompanied by hushed mourning in the lower voices. The original soloists were Hannah Littleton (s1), Ailsa Campbell (s2), and Jonathan Darbourne (a1)—the alto solo was originally intended for countertenor, but a flexible combination of voice-types is appropriate.
