Music, when soft voices die - Percy Bysshe Shelley

for male voice and guitar. (2018)

In my twenties, I would play and sing nearly every song by by Don McLean, Lennon & McCartney and Paul Simon. Approaching the age of thirty, I more or less stopped playing them because I didn't take any musical interest in them anymore. Now, some thirty-five years later I felt the urge to take up this musical pastime again, but now in the field that I am currently in. My goal was to compose it in such a way that, even in this so called modern classical stye, I myself would be able to perform it and although it is absolutely not in a popular style, I think it still has a touch of it, both in feeling and melody shaping. Of course, it is possible to have two performers.

Since writing lyrics is not my best, I decided to pick a poem which was direct in content and had a romantic flavour. I paged through my poetry books and found Shelley's 'Music, when soft voices die' to be suitable for my purpose.

I composed it as a stand-alone song - merely to please my own needs - but if I take enough pleasure in it, there will probably be more in the future. So far, it has been enjoyable.

  FEATURED

  Currently working on a work for      saxophone quartet, requested by      the Bron Saxophone Quartet.

  My latest work is "Ritual text      for the afterlife"  for women's          choir and tubular bells.
     Ancient Greek goldplates with      texts - recently  found in graves -      that were carried by the dead on      their journey to afterlife.

  In progress is a work of a much     bigger scale: Blodeuwedd,  a     dance poem for narrator,      singer/reciter, dancer and      ensemble. The poem is by the      Welsh poet Tony Conran.

  Another recent work (2016) is
     O me! O life! (Walt Whitman) for      choir and string quintet.

  My Guitar sonata (1982) is      now being published by
     Editiones Eudora (Madrid),

  Draaf, Foekje. Draaf!

    Watch the television interview.     (You need to understand Frisian,     though).