Let a Florid Music Praise
COMPOSER’S NOTE
This is the fourth piece from the collection The Call which I wrote in Autumn 1997 in the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana. The collection uses poems which seemed to echo the public’s need for answers to eternal questions. This piece for soprano and piano or string quartet and harp is a setting of the beautiful W. H. Auden poem of the same name.
DURATION
3 minutes
SOLOIST
Soprano
INSTRUMENTATION
Piano OR String Quartet & Harp
YEAR OF COMPOSITION
1997
PUBLISHER
Hawes Music
SHEET MUSIC
Available from
Hawes Music
Orchestral Parts available on hire
Email: andyberry@hawesmusic.com
Tel: +44 (0)7879 645621
Let a florid music praise,
The flute and the trumpet,
Beauty’s conquest of your face:
In that land of flesh and bone,
Where from citadels on high
Her imperial standards fly,
Let the hot sun
Shine on, shine on.
O but the unloved have had power,
The weeping and striking,
Always: time will bring their hour;
Their secretive children walk
Through your vigilance of breath
To unpardonable Death,
And my vows break
Before his look.
Words: W. H. Auden (1907-1973)