Description
These songs were written in May - June 2003 as entries for the English Poetry and Song Society Song-Writing Competition of that year.
The three songs reflect the manic depressive nature of a poet who eventually committed suicide.
1: Absence - reflects the depressive side in a poem where the author seems to be seeking an excuse for death.
2: A Quoi Bon Dire - uses the concept that the poetess is either talking to her dead lover or thinks that she is actually dead herself. The setting is a danse macabre and uses half-quotations from Offenbach, Beethoven, Wagner and Satie and is playfully marked Vivo.
3: In The Fields - is a hymn-like setting of a poem which seems to reject the concept of an afterlife.