Lennox Berkeley

I Carry Your Heart With Me

Lennox Berkeley's I Carry Your Heart With Me for medium Voice and Piano. ' Sometime in 1970 I gave Lennox Berkeley a volume of poems by the American poet E. E. Cummings (1894-1962) since my sister Meriel Dickinson and I were commissioning him towrite a song-cycle for a whole programme of settings of Cummings. At the time he became involved with Chinese poetry and we were delighted with the Chinese Songs, Op. 78. However, a year or so later, in July 1972, Berkeley did set a poem by Cummings. This was 'i carry your heart with me' from 95 Poems (1958) and he dedicated the song to the countertenorTay Cheng Jim. The manuscript leaves few questions. Obviously the pedal sustains the sextuplet and triplet groups at the start and finish. It is possible that all the As in bar 32 of the left hand piano part should be flat, although there are clashes like this elsewhere. A few phrase-marks have been added on existing patterns. ' - Peter Dickinson