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- Ian Venables
Love lives beyond the tomb, Op. 37 (2004)
- Novello & Co Ltd (World)
Commissioned by Lady Bliss
Programme Note
‘Love lives beyond the tomb’ was written as a 100th birthday tribute to Lady Bliss. Venables captures the first stanza’s sepulchral imagery and quasi-Elizabethan atmosphere, by combining a lilting siciliano feel in the vocal line with an austere piano accompaniment that is harmonically in the Dorian mode. Contrast is achieved throughout the song by providing subtle changes in the piano accompaniment that mirror the shifting mood of each verse. The song comes full circle with an almost exact repetition of the poem’s opening lines and concludes as it began, as a meditation on the meaning of love.