Melissa Dunphy

Related Works

Suite Remembrance (SATB choir)

Suite Remembrance: All Flesh Is Grass (SATB choir)

Suite Remembrance: If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking (SATB choir)

Suite Remembrance: Mourning into Dancing (double SATB choir)

Commissioned by the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus (Philip Barnes, Artistic Director).

Suite Remembrance is a set of four contrasting “memorial dances” for unaccompanied mixed chorus. Movements range from energetic to lyrical and moving, and each takes after a dance form. This movement is the first. The text is by Nathaniel Schlott (1701), and it's paired with music in the form and feel of a rather jaunty Saltarello, despite the grim title!

[Dunphy's] set of four short pieces entitled Remembrance explores the relationship between dance and song. The first two settings are contrasting pieces in lively dance rhythms. There follows a haunting setting of Emily Dickinson’s ‘If I can stop one heart from breaking’. This slow and expressive piece takes the suite off in a different direction. For the final piece, Melissa Dunphy’s choice of words from Psalm 30 (‘Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing’) is adroit; the words bridge nicely from the introspection of Dickinson back to extrovert dancing for the last movement of this attractive Suite. [MusicWeb International]

I. Todtentanz
By Nathaniel Scott (1701)
Translated by an unknown woman

Ye mortals, up! your glass is out,
Both high and low; for do not doubt,
But tyrant kings, at my command,
Shall take a beggar by the hand.
I'll tune my pipe, as they advance,
And make them partners in a dance.