First performance by Jenny Duck-Chong and Halcyon, 6 October 2007, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney
Perf. Halcyon: Mark Shiell conductor, Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo-soprano, Veronique Serret and Thomas Talmacs violin, Nicole Forsyth viola, Danny Yeadon cello
Source: Recorded live at Halcyon concert ‘Lily on a Black Wave: Modern composers interpret Shakespeare’ at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music on 6 October 2007
Program note
An epithalamium (or epithalamion) is a song after a wedding. This one sets words from the wedding scene of Ferdinand and Miranda in Act IV of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The words themselves may or may not be by Shakespeare – a number of Shakespeare scholars have their doubts that he wrote this part of the play – but the blessing delivered by the three spirits, in the forms of the goddesses Juno, Ceres and Iris, contains some delightful imagery.