Bent Sørensen

Roses Are Falling

Roses Are Falling - 5 songs for Mezzo-Soprano and Piano by Bent Sorensen (1998) with lyrics by Selima Hill. Programme note: 'Roses are Falling' had its origin in a small opera sketch I created with the English poet Selima Hill in just under a week during an opera workshop in the south of England in the autumn of 1998. After the workshop I was asked to make a song cycle out of the material. The opera sketch begins with a woman and a man sitting alone in a room. They have drawn aside from the rest of a large party and they have just decided to finish their love affair. The other guests at the party come into the room, and amidst the crowd the man leaves the room. The women is left there alone among all these inconsequential people; alone, singing her own thoughts and torment. The first three songs were all taken from this part. In the fourth song, which was written late, the text is taken from one of Selima Hill's poetry collections. The fifth and last song comes partly from the beginning of the opera, where the man and the women sit alone (she knows what is coming), partly from the end of the story, where despite the gab in time and space they 'touch each other with their dreams'. His voice is heard as a whisper that merges with hers: 'He takes me in his arms like the moonthat turns and take the evening from the sun'. 'Roses are Falling' was premiered in 2000 in London by Loré Lixenberg and Domenic Saunders.