“Music, When Soft Voices Die”: Frank Bridge’s Setting of Shelley
“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 …