Echo (2024)

Echo is a short setting of a text by Christina Rossetti, dealing with themes of love, memory, loss, death, grief, and dreams. 

Come to me in the silence of the night; 

Come in the speaking silence of a dream; 

Come with soft rouded cheeks and eyes as bright 

As sunlight on a stream; 

Come back in tears, 

O memory, hope, love of finished years. 

Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet, 

Whose wakening should have been in Paradise, 

Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet; 

Where thristing longing eyes 

Watch the slow door 

That opening, letting in, lets out no more. 

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live 

My very life again tho' cold in death; 

Come back to me in dreams, that i may give 

Pulse for pulse, breath for breath: 

Speak low, lean low, 

As long ago, my love, how long ago.

Christina Rossetti 1854 

The work was premiered on the 4th of June 2024 at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, by Erina Kirton (Soprano) and Sebastian Forno (Piano)