When I was a student at the University Conservatorium of Music in Melbourne, I entered a collection of Shakespeare settings in the 1948 Victorian School Music Association Composition Competition. To my delight, the collection was judged as runner-up. I felt this recognition helped justify my desire to be a composer in the eyes of my parents. The songs, designed for use in schools, were gathered together under

the title, A Glimpse of Seventeenth Century England, for unison voices and piano.

 

Apart from a few sketches, all that remains of the collection are ‘Take, O Take Those Lips Away’ and ‘Sigh No More, Ladies’. In 2000, I revised these two songs, along with ‘O Mistress Mine’, and my good friend David Leisner arranged them for voice and guitar in 2011. In order to complete the cycle, devoted to aspects of love, I later added a much-revised version of ‘Come Away, Death’.

P.S.