Lennox Berkeley

For Medium Voice and Piano. Text of Chinese Poets translated by A. Waley R Kotewell and NL Smith. Premiered by Peter and Meriel Dickinson.

Lennox Berkeley's I Carry Your Heart With Me for medium Voice and Piano.'Sometime in 1970 I gave Lennox Berkeley a volume of poems by the American poet E. E. Cummings (1894-1962) since mysister Meriel Dickinson and I were commissioning him towrite a song-cycle for a whole programme of settings of Cummings. At the time he became involved with Chinese poetry and we were delighted with the Chinese Songs Op. 78.However a year or so later in July 1972 Berkeley did set a poem by Cummings. This was ‘i carry your heart with me’ from 95 Poems (1958) and he dedicated the song to the countertenorTay Cheng Jim.The manuscript leavesfew questions. Obviously the pedal sustains the sextuplet and triplet groups at the start and finish. It is possible that all the As in bar 32 of the left hand piano part should be flat although there are clashes like thiselsewhere. A few phrase-marks have been added on existing patterns.' - Peter Dickinson