I'll love you (Auden)
Martin Hennessy
About this work:
World premier sung by soprano, Heidi Skok, February 22, 1995 with the composer accompanying in a concert by Positive Music at the Lesbian and Gay Center in New York City.
Heidi sang a benefit for Hearts and Voices, an organization that provided entertainment to AIDS wards around the city. I couldn’t play for her that evening so Levering Rothfuss did. She came to my studio the next day with the program that revealed a variety of therapeutic texts, including I’ll Love You by Auden. I was uplifted by its colorful testimony of unconditional love and promptly set it for her. Levering would die of AIDS a few years later. I would eventually find the courage to say: “I am HIV positive.”
Available through Classical Vocal Reprints. Four Song Volume 1 (CVR3261).
This song can be found on the Newport Classic compact disc, Women’s Voices (NPD85613) pairing Ned Rorem’s cycle Women’s Voices with Seven Songs of Martin Hennessy
Version: high voice and piano
Year composed: 1992
Duration: 00:01:04
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Solo Voice with Keyboard
Instrumentation: 1 Piano, 1 High Voice