Music When Soft Voices Die

Last summer, Clare Stewart asked if I would write a piece for Apollo5’s next album. Roses would be the central image for that disc and I could “use my imagination” about what that meant…which was good, because I couldn’t find anything rose-themed that really spoke to me.

Then I remembered my sophomore year of college when I sang Roger Quilter’s setting of “Music When Soft Voices Die,” a short poem by Percy Shelley. I read that for the first time in years and loved it, and in particular, the line “rose leaves, when the rose is dead, are heaped for the beloved’s bed.” If the length of the piece didn’t matter - and Clare assured me it didn’t - I knew I wanted to give this a go.

Then, one COVID morning when time seemed irrelevant and new music wasn’t on my mind, I woke up to a recording from London; a rehearsal with Apollo5 at the VOCES8 Centre and people on Facebook chiming in. Check it out:

Music, when soft voices die,

Vibrates in the memory—

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,

Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,

Are heaped for the belovèd's bed;

And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,

Love itself shall slumber on.