Work
The Dying Lover
for voice and piano
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Call of the Huia (A Collection of Early NZ Art Songs, Part One) — downloadable PDF SCORE and MP3 ALBUM
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About
The Dying Lover is undated, but thought to have been written before the composer's move to New Zealand. He wrote several madrigals, which shows his penchant for music of the 16th and 17th centuries, which is why he was probably attracted to the poem by John Dryden. The song is a very charming model of its type.
John Dryden was one of the foremost influential English poets of the 17th century. The Dying Lover (‘Go tell Amynta, gentle swain’) comes from a collection of ‘Songs, Odes and Lyrical Pieces’ published in Miscellany Poems (1685). Thomas’s setting doesn’t always accurately represent Dryden’s original verse.
Dedication note
Dedicated to W. A. M.
Text note
Text by John Dryden (1631–1700)