The Marriage Ring

Marriage Ring was commissioned by the 20th Century Consort and first performed by William Sharp, Lisa Emmenthaler and Rudolf Verbsky at the Hirschorn Gallery in the Library of Congress on December 5, 1989. The composer writes - ¿The eight-song cycle The Marriage Ring was inspired by the title¿s head quote from William Blake. It seemed, as I thought it through, a man¿s response to the female life cycle of Spring Songs, though only one poet is common to both ¿ Willa Doppmann, my wife. I think now that these songs, with oboe accompaniment, reflect something else: another way, musically, of bringing the song cycle into contact with a larger instrumental design whereby linking passages, kept to a minimum (there had been five extended ones in Spring Songs), are reabsorbed into the steady pace of a short numbers-opera, a theatre device exploited to perfection by Mozart and carried on in 19th century Italian opera from Rossini to Puccini. An entertainment, in a word, with passion, silliness, despair, hope, joy ¿ and even a moral at the end.¿