The Shepherd and His Love

Text is a dialogue to poems by Christopher Marlowe (“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”) and Sir Walter Raleigh (“The Nymph’s Reply”)

Composer's Note

“The Shepherd and His Love” was written as a wedding gift to Betsey and Carl Schmidt, son of my former mentor, Harold Schmidt. It was premiered at Harvard with the bride and groom in the chorus. The choral men (and a piccolo) take Marlowe’s side — that the nymph should believe the shepherd’s claim about the beauty of nature and love. Sir Walter Raleigh (with the women and a viola) warn that “truth is not in every shepherd’s tongue.”

Press

“This is the type of writing which may well be the salvation of choral music. The various levels of sound, chirping piccolo, melancholic viola, percussive piano etc., make for a constantly changing fabric of sound … You owe it to yourself as an inquisitive musician to look at it.”
— Choral Journal

“One of the most original and successful of [Mechem’s] text settings”
— The Choral Review