“Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory.”
These are the opening lines of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous 1824 poem, a meditation on the eternal nature of memory, sensation, and love.
English composer Frank Bridge (1879-1941) created an a cappella choral setting of the poem in 1907. The opening phrases pay homage to the English madrigal tradition. Visions of mortality are painted tonally with a plaintive sighing gesture. The final notes drift into a serene and blissful eternal sleep.
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap’d for the belovèd’s bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
– Percy Bysshe Shelley
Recordings
- Bridge: Music, When Soft Voices Die, H.31 Tenebrae, Nigel Short Hyperion Records
Featured Image: “The Bridge, Bridgnorth” (1901), Philip Wilson Steer
Such a beautiful musical tribute to the great poet! Added to my “favorites” playlist!
Listening to this piece resurfaced a memory of the tragic circumstances surrounding Shelley’s death. Days after his boat capsized in a storm, his decomposed body washed up on shore. As the story goes, Edward Trelawny, a close friend of Shelley’s, identified his body upon finding a book of poetry by Keats in Shelley’s pocket. I love this story and will continue to believe as I listen and re-listen to this lovely piece of music.
Then there’s another story. It’s also been claimed that Shelley’s heart was retrieved from the funeral pyre and given to his wife, Mary Shelley. After which, she wrapped the heart in one of his poems and kept it with her for the rest of her life. As the author of Frankenstein, it just might be true.