Arakelyan, Kristina - Echo (from Seascapes)

'Echo' is the third movement of 'Seascapes', which was commissioned by the BBC Singers, as companion music to the 'Four Sea Interludes' by Benjamin Britten, arranged for the organ by Anna Lapwood. It was premiered at Temple Church by the BBC Singers, conducted by Ben Palmer, on 7 October. The four movements of 'Seascapes' take the four Britten movements as inspiration, seen through the prism of Arakelyan's musical language. Ranging from the painful lyricism of the third movement, Echo, to the wild energy of the final movement, Storm Wind, the musical syntax, including the melodies, structure and tonal centres are presented as a homage. The poems by Christina Rossetti were chosen to reflect the narrative themes of Britten’s opera 'Peter Grimes', from which the 'Four Sea Interludes' are taken. The compositions can be paired with the Four Sea Interludes or performed as standalone pieces.

Text:
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again tho’ cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago!

Christina Rossetti