Songs of Love & Friendship

When the Groot Omroepkoorʼs (Netherlandʼs Radio Choir) Chief Conductor Benjamin Goodson and Stiftfestivalsʼ violinist-director Daniel Rowland approached me to write a piece for them, I immediately googled Dutch poets. I was intrigued to find the French-sounding name, Isabelle de Charrire (1740  1805). Also known as Belle van Zuylen, she was born and brought up in Utrecht, where the premiere of this new composition would take place. In the 18th century, it was common for well-to-do families to appoint French tutors for their children and, as a result, everything Belle wrote was in that language. Her writings cover all aspects of life and love, but I was particularly drawn to these two poems. 1. Companion, for which I have taken three verses from her longer poem Heureux moineaux, tells of her envy at how much easier sparrowsʼ relationships with each other are than those between humans.

The poem was Belleʼs reaction to hearing of the philandering Marquis de Lassay, inspiring her to express that it is good to flee from love and to prefer a less jealous, less worrisome friendship. The violin sets the scene, imitating authentic sparrow calls from Californian, Argentinian and Spanish sparrows and the choir enters, taking the sparrowsʼ rhythms and harmonizing the pitch progressions. Here, the English words feature alongside the original French as a bird-like accompaniment. 2. Conquest, or Quels accents vien-je dʼentendre is a beautifully structured and intensely passionate poem, written as a song for Mademoiselle de Tuyll de Serooskerken, elder daughter of Lord of Zuylen. It was originally set to the air: Vous amants, que jʼintresse  possibly a pre-existing tune or one composed by Belle herself. I have relished creating overtly romantic harmonies with restless textures in English accompanying the yearning melody in French. The violin alternates between accompanying them in lilting broken chords and soaring ardently over the choir. I am deeply grateful to both Benjamin and Daniel for asking me to do this and to AVROTROS and the Stiftfestival for commissioning the work, on the occasion of Benjaminʼs inaugural concert as the choirʼs Chief Conductor. Roxanna Panufnik (8 June, 2020)