Work
Two Poems of Katherine Mansfield
for mezzo-soprano and piano
Films, Audio & Samples
About
The two poems of Katherine Mansfield’s I’ve chosen both resonate for me on a very intimate level. There is a Solemn Wind Tonight speaks of that elemental force of nature that every born and bred Wellingtonian feels in their bones, and that perhaps continues to have a mysterious kind of hold upon our psyches. Sea Song likewise is an ode to memory, those bittersweet echoes of a more carefree existence that Mansfield seems to acknowledge begrudgingly: ‘Memory dwells in my faraway home/She has nothing to do with me’. ‘Sea Song’ concludes with an extended passage for piano solo during which our poet/protagonist attempts to reconcile her alienated present with an idealised yet ultimately out of reach past. Two Poems of Katherine Mansfield were composed in Xinzheng, China in May & June 2023 and are dedicated to their first interpreters, Tessa Romano and Sherry Grant, and to John Sharpley, like K.M. a fellow traveller across cultures and a chronicler of imaginative power.
Commissioned note
Commissioned for ‘Child of the Sun’ — A Celebration of Katherine Mansfield in Song
Contents note
- Sea Song
- There is a Solemn Wind Tonight
Text note
Text by Katherine Mansfield