Never Kissed

This song cycle, written for the soprano Bethan Moore in 2018, sets five short poems by Sara Teasdale on the subject of unrequited (or unexpressed) love. Each poem is in a similar form: two verses of four lines, the second verse presenting a contrasting sentiment to the first. The final song, The Look, was written in 2008 as part of my first song cycle, Shades of Love: it has been slightly revised for inclusion in this new cycle.
When creating the vocal lines of these songs, I employed several specific techniques. I was keen to see how the words could directly influence their melodic setting and thus there is very little or no use of melisma: the notes match the words closely. In order to explore a wide range of pitch opportunities, all the songs feature seven-note phrases which include one each of all the available pitches from the prevailing tonality – the first and last phrases of each song are written in this way and two of the songs, Gifts and Less than the cloud to the wind, are wholly constructed from such seven-note rows. I hope that this approach has produced interesting melodic shapes.