Karim Al-Zand: Music: Unsentimental Love Songs

Unsentimental Love Songs

songs for voice & piano

Unsentimental Love Songs is devoted to the quotidian side of love. Edna St. Vincent Millay’s (1892–1950) sonnet I Shall Forget You Presently, My Dear is a classic unsentimental love poem, one of many to feature her delicate balance of scoffing wit and fragile sincerity. It was published in her 1920 collection A Few Figs from Thistles. The text of This is the Question is drawn from a two-page spread in Charles Darwin’s (1809–1882) diary, where the famed scientist methodically weighs the pros and cons of his impending nuptials.

His sensitive, if somewhat self-absorbed character comes across charmingly in his amorous analysis. And his conclusions proved correct: he and Emma Wedgwood were happily married for 42 years, a bond no doubt strengthened by music. (Emma was a fine pianist who took lessons with Chopin!)