Lydia Kakabadse: A Vision – for mezzo soprano and piano (NXP127)

This is a sheet music edition of A Vision by the composer Lydia Kakabadse.

Sheet music for mezzo soprano and piano

Music: Lydia Kakabadse
Words: John Clare (1793–1864)

Score: 7 pages

Audio sample

Preface and programme notes

The lyrics, by English poet John Clare, is representative of the Romantic era and appears to portray a visionary dream of a utopian world disrupted by a sense of loss. A sorrow, which stayed with Clare throughout his life, was his first love, Mary Joyce, whom he never forgot (referenced in the 3rd verse).

Several years before he wrote this poem, Clare was certified insane and admitted to a mental asylum. The piece is characterised by the use of minor keys and a jerky rhythmic pattern, representing a melancholic tone and an unsettled state of mind.

Lydia Kakabadse

Words

I lost the love of heaven above
I spurned the lust of earth below
I felt the sweets of fancied love
And hell itself my only foe.

I lost earth’s joys but felt the glow
Of heaven’s flame abound in me
Till loveliness and I did grow
The bard of immortality.

I loved but woman fell away
I hid me from her faded fame
I snatched the sun’s eternal ray
And wrote till earth was but a name.

In every language upon earth
On every shore o’er every sea,
I gave my name immortal birth,
And kept my spirit with the free.