••• Christina Rossetti's "Remember" •••

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Setting for large choir of this beautiful and haunting poem by one of the most celebrated poets of the Victorian era

Christina Rossetti's poem "Remember" has resonated in my subconscious for many years until something now forgotten prompted me to investigate setting it for choir.

The first two phrases emerged spontaneously: what followed came through forward backward struggles at the piano.

It is a song of hope in the face of near despair.

The desire to create a score that was clear for the competent amateur led to a number of transcription decisions.

First was simplification of rhythm and metre from the manuscript's poly-rhythms.

Accidentals in this shifting chromaticism were written with horizontal rather than vertical logic, for clarity to readers of individual parts.

From the plaintiff plea of the first words in a separating unison F, briefly an ambivalent D minor, it fluctuates and wavers towards the rising last phrase, into the ether of a second inversion major sixth in E.

Download choral score of "Remember" here in PDF format.

REMEMBER me when I am gone away,
   Gone far away into the silent land;
   When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
   You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
   Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
   And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
   For if the darkness and corruption leave
   A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
   Than that you should remember and be sad.