Canciones Sobre el Amor y la Muerte (Songs of Love and Death) is a setting of three poems from Federico García Lorca’s “Canciones” (1921-24) for soprano and string quartet. There is also an instrumental interlude between the second and third poems. A melancholy atmosphere imbues much of the poetry from this collection, written when Lorca (born in 1898, executed in Granada by the Falangists in 1936) was in his mid-twenties. The first song has a relatively lengthy instrumental introduction over a ground bass in the cello, whose repetitive quality is intended to convey a sense that no matter how much familiar ground the pony and rider cover, fate has determined that arrival at their destination is ultimately impossible. [See poem below]
            The second song is melodramatic, and is concerned with the amount of effort involved in loving another. It struck me as a fun, rather silly poem, so I tried to write music that would capture these qualities. [See poem below]
            There follows an interlude for string quartet, titled “La muerte me está mirando” (Death is watching me), a reference to a line in the first song. I was trying to write something beautiful that would convey a profound, bitter-sweet emotional mood, interrupted occasionally by short, passionate bursts of energy by the violin, which ultimately becomes more subdued along with the others.
            The last song juxtaposes seemingly-trivial everyday acts, like eating oranges and harvesting wheat (done by a reaper), with a serene acceptance of the inevitable. [See poem below]
            I started working on this collection in 1988, revised it in 1991-92, and completely re-worked and expanded it in 1995-96. I have also arranged "Es Verdad" and the "Interlude" for orchestra; they are the first and second, respectively, of my "Three Lorca Sketches for Orchestra."
            Canciones… is dedicated to my mother, who died in 1978, and who loved music.

©Clark Winslow Ross