I loved you first (2015)
for SATB choir, a cappella
Text: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Duration: 4 minutes
Difficulty: 2/4
First performance by Wascana Voices (Regina, SK) in April 2016. First European performance in London by The Fourth Choir (Dominic Peckham, dir.) in February 2017.
Recorded by Chronos Vocal Ensemble on their 2018 CD: Fresh: New Music from Canada.
I loved you first is a simple and emotional setting of the eponymous poem by Christina Rossetti. In this piece, I aimed to write something pure, delicate, and vulnerable, but which remained true to my background in sacred choral music. The text, about the nature of true and lasting love, is set with clean, sterile lines juxtaposed against passionate declarations, closing with a warm and reaffirming chorale.
Click here to see the complete score.
The audio below is from a live performance by Chronos Vocal Ensemble in January 2018.
Full Text
I loved you first: but afterwards your love,
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? My love was long,
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be—
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not ‘mine' or ‘thine';
With separate ‘I' and ‘thou' free love has done,
For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine';
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us, of the love which makes us one.