SATB divisi, total performance time 18’10”

The constituent pieces in this choral cycle are based on the thematic ideas presented in C.S. Lewis’s 1960 book of the same title. Four separate poems were combined to make a larger narrative form that encompasses the four categories of love adopted by Lewis: Storge, Philia, Eros, Agape.

This work, in its four movements, is published by Muziksea, and can be purchased in full or by its individual movements.

First performance by the University of Aberdeen Chamber Singers, conducted by Kenneth Tay, 18 August 2018.

Singapore premiere by the SYC Ensemble Singers, conducted by Jennifer Tham, 24 August 2019.

See where stands the cottage of the labourer,
covered with warm thatch;
the mother is spinning at the door;
the young children sport before her on the grass;
the elder ones learn to labour, and are obedient;
the father worketh to provide them food:
either he tilleth the ground, or he gathereth in the corn,
or shaketh his ripe apples from the tree:
his children run to meet him when he cometh home,
and his wife prepareth the wholesome meal.

Hymn VIII, Anna Laetita Barbauld (1743-1825)

Pour out your light, O stars, and do not hold
Your loveliest shining from earth’s outworn shell
Pure and cold your radiance – pure and cold
My dead friends face as well.

Pour out your bounty moon of radiant shining
On all this shattered flesh, on all these quiet forms;
For these were slain, so quiet still reclining
In the noblest cause was ever waged with arms.

Requiem, Ivor Gurney (1890-1937)

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the Rocks,
Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow Rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of Roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and Ivy buds,
With Coral clasps and Amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

The Passionate Shepherd to his Love, Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)

As the Father hath loved me,
I also have loved you.
Abide in my love.
If you keep my commandments,
you shall abide in my love:
as I also have kept my Father’s commandments
and do abide in his love.
These things I have spoken to you,
that my joy may be in you,
and your joy may be filled.

John 15:9-11, KJV