Love Song

Sir Philip Sydney (E)

In 1977 I was enjoying reading a huge amount of poetry while hunting down words for a commission for the mezzo soprano-piano duo, Peter and Meriel Dickinson. During my reading I was captured by ‘Just Exchange, the enchanting humorous 16th century love poem by Sir Philip Sidney,.  Within moments of reading it, there on the manuscript paper was my Love Song.





This however was not a work of enough substance to fulfil my commission, not enough of a challenge for the performers.  I took my Love Song into the house as a present for my wife Camilla, and subsequently wrote a vocalise (Dreamscape) for the beautiful voice of Meriel Dickinson (who several times then sang Love Song too). Later I made a voice-harp version for performance by another talented brother-and-sister duo, David and Helen Watkins.


Andrzej Panufnik


[Note: In the last days of his life, Panufnik added a string accompaniment to the voice-harp version of Love Song, on request of another friend, Mark Stephenson.]


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