La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Wind quartet and solo soprano
8.5 minutes
2024

I was interested in experimenting with different kinds of accompaniment for songs. This led me to write this work for wind quintet and solo soprano. I wanted to write a song that features different characters portrayed by the same performer in a similar way to Schubert’s Erlkonig. In this song, the soprano plays three characters; an inquisitive passerby, who is distinguished by their free rhythm and whispering, the faery queen who sings in nonsense syllables, quick triplets, and explosive high notes, and an oblivious knight, who narrates the tale, and often at odds with the other music happening. The wind quintet represents the setting of the song, and shows the different times and locations throughout the story; be that the desolate present, the idyllic queen’s forest, or the evil grot and dangerous dream. Additionally, I wanted to use a poem that included natural imagery and an infamous faery queen. This led me to Keats’ famous poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci.
I have split the poem into two parts for this work, the first being an introduction to the knight in the present, as well as a flashback to the past wherein the faery queen and her forest are illustrated and the knight falls in love with her. The second part features the faery queen’s deceptive plot to lure the knight to their demise like all who came before. The work ends as it began with the knight in a state of betrayal, defeat and heartbreak.
Separate from the source material of the poem, I have written a song for the faery queen which closes the first part and opens the second. This is a way to see a bigger picture of the story than just the poem. This is a platform for the faery queen to speak her mind and express her feelings about the actions of the knight. Given the unreliability of the knight as a narrator within the poem, this peek into the mind of the faery queen gives context for her actions later in the story.