Through the looking glass

Score and parts available from the composer.

The idea for the songs came from my wish to compose a work dedicated to my wife Diana and her love of playing the lieder repertoire. We immediately thought of Noemi’s poetry in both Romanian and English, which attracted me for many reasons. I had an instant connection with Noemi as a person, not least because she was a language scholar like my father, has a musical background from her family and was an expat in an English-speaking country, like me. Furthermore, I was intrigued to discover the poetry written by an author known as a world renowned professor of rhetorics. The choice of poems reflects that, with the author’s voice taking a playful tone in I. Memo, capturing the poetic moment of a personal email, II. Imigrare, a meditation on the inner-self dimension of immigration, and III. Searching with the soul, a love song for the other. The musical setting derives from the nature of the text, with I. Memo built as a recitative and arioso within a Silicon Valley soundscape, II. Imigrare, a road moto perpetuo based on an unrecognisable musical quote from Anton Pann’s Ah! mult sînt streină-n lume, and III. Searching with the soul tracing melodic paths through a tonally-suspended cycle of variations. Diana and I would like to thank Noemi's daughter for the permission to set her poems to music.