GB10147
Lord Byron
When Bruno Messina commissioned me to compose a work for voice and orchestra on a text by Lord Byron, which would be premiered in French at the 2019 edition of the Berlioz Festival (at the Côte-St-André), I thought of his poem On the Death of a Young Lady. It was written in memory of his recently deceased cousin Margaret Parker, by a poet aged on/y 14. Two years earlier, Byron had already dedicated another poem to the young woman in which he confessed his love. Poetry of mourning, a poignant piece... the gravity of the poem led me to set it to music for mezzo-soprano. The lamentation begins with a knell on the harp, continues in its central part with a denser counterpoint built on a chromatic collapse, and concludes with a rocking of chords opening onto an eternity less fanereal than eased.
Karol Beffa