Kerry Milan - Sonnets from the Portuguese

Sonnets from the Portuguese

Instrumentation

Mezzo-soprano Pianoforte

Recording, click here

Score, download - 0.03MB

Other Information

At 36 minutes this is a substantial song cycle, written for mezzo Yvonne Howard.

It is a setting of sixteen of the forty-four sonnets that Elizabeth Barrett secretly wrote during the twenty months of her ´courtship´ with Robert Browning, starting with the first "I thought once how Theocritus had sung ..." and finishing with number 43 "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways".

The sonnets chosen faithfully chronicle Elizabeth Barrett Browning´ s fluctuating moods through what was a hugely emotional period, during which the couple wrote to each other no less than 574 times.  Insights from these letters inform a number of these deeply moving settings.

There is a full work video recording of Yvonne Howard and Roy Wightman - click link, left