Epithalamium (1991)

3 minutes

for tenor, violin and bell

This is the original version of Epithalamium. There is also an arrangement for voice, flute and cello, and an extended version for mezzo-soprano and string quartet.

Text:

William Shakespeare, Act IV of The Tempest

First performance by Gerald English (tenor), Alice Evans (violin), Michael Askill (tubular bell), Huntington Estate Winery, Mudgee, NSW, 30 November 1991

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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.