Oh Roses

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First Performance

January 2022

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Ensemble

Voice and Piano

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Duration

2 minutes

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Program Notes

Written for Maghan McPhee and Valerie Dueck during the East Chamber Music Festival in November 2021. 

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Song, by Christina Rossetti, starts with the speaker remembering her beauty and youth, then showing her bittersweet feelings towards aging. She realizes may not have achieved what she always thought she would in her life, but she is still content in the end. The music in Oh Roses reflects these conflicting feelings of the speaker. 

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Jaclyn Breeze, 2022

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Song by Christina Rossetti

Oh roses for the flush of youth,

And laurel for the perfect prime;

But pluck an ivy branch for me

Grown old before my time.

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Oh violets for the grave of youth, 

And bay for those dead in their prime;

Give me the withered leaves I chose

Before in the old time.