Sorrow Into Song

“Sorrow into Song” was inspired by my mother, who passed away in April 2021. In the last years of her life, she was unable to speak or understand language due to dementia, but she never stopped singing. As communication became more and more difficult, and as she gradually stopped recognizing her friends and family, it became clear that music was the last remaining connection that we had with her.
The way that my mother continued “singing in hard wind ceaselessly” after she lost the ability to speak is reflected in the way that I have set the poem: while the tenor and bass parts contain all of the text, the soprano and alto parts consist almost entirely of wordless singing. The only words sung by the sopranos and altos are “rise from pain” – words which I think encapsulate both the essence of the poem and the role of music in my mother’s life, especially when she was ill.

– Christine Donkin (2022)