“Echo

Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As Sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

Oh Dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again tho’ cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago.

Christina Rossetti, 1854

When Matilda Lloyd came to me about this commission, she requested a fantasia for an upcoming trumpet and organ album, inspired by literature, landscapes, dreams, mythical tales or poetry. Christina Rossetti’s poem ‘Echo’ stirs up heightened bitter-sweet emotions and a longing for a love that has been lost and might only now be possible to recall in her dreams. I have set the poem as I would have done for a singer and the words appear above the trumpet part so that they can be emoted exactly as they occur. Bittersweet harmonies convey this mood, the longing is heightened in the central section and literal echoes reverberate through the melody of the last verse.

I’m very grateful to Matilda and organist Richard Gowers for collaborating on this piece and to my school English teacher, Tim Williams, for finding this and talking it through with me. It lasts approximately 4’30”.

Roxanna Panufnik, 3rd January 2024″