Francis Pott’s My song is love unknown sets all of Samuel Crossman’s famous verses but one (commonly omitted when the poem is sung metrically as a hymn). The music begins with offbeat repeated chords prompted—not inappropriately—by the opening to Richard Strauss’s tone poem  Death and transfiguration. In its early stages only trebles and altos are heard. The sequential flow of Crossman’s poem is soon disrupted with particular dramatic ends in mind. After a seemingly anxious harmonic distortion of the opening chords the word ‘crucify’ arises initially as a mere mutter from the lowervoices so timed as to afford assonance with other words in the upper parts and thus remain barely discernible as if only imagined. In due course however cries of ‘Hosanna’ find themselves on a collision course with a rising tide of ‘Crucify’ during which the ‘Hosanna’ faction gradually loses heart and sheep-like defects until a single treble voice—plaintively daring to repeat the ‘offending’ word—is swept aside by a murderous outcry. In due course ‘Crucify’ recurs as a further angry climax before the opening music returns this time expanding into an extended polyphonic final section for double choir and SATB soloists. The principal climax of the work subsides into a form of epilogue crowned sorrowfully by a treble soloist to whom the music in toto has by now presented many challenges. The anthem ends in the key and mood of its opening. The character of its demanding organ part reflects the possibility that it may one day be orchestrated.   My song is love unknown was composed in memory of Michael Renton a craftsman and largely self-taught ‘Renaissance’ man who was not only a member of the Winchester cathedral congregation but also the cathedral’s stonemason. He was beloved of many in the Cathedral community; a true and

Ballade by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe-During the summer of 1799 Goethe wrote his ballad ?Die erste Walpurgisnacht ? and asked his friend Carl Friedrich Zelter to set the work to music. Zelter however felt unable to do this and so Goethe?s wish was only realised thirty years later by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.The ?heavenly words? of the pagan ballads had impressed the composer so much after a visit to Weimar that he was inspired to set them to music. In 1832 the composition took shape and was performed a year later in the Sing- Akademie in Berlin.Mendelssohn was however unhappy with the first version of the work and held it back until he decided on a radical revision ofthe work ten years after its premiere. Die ?erste Walpurgisnacht? was first performed in 1843 in Leipzig in the presence of Robert Schumann and Hector Berlioz in the form in which the work is still performed today. The publication of this edition by John Michael Cooper Associate Professor of Music History at the University of North Texas (Denton) makes the work available in an Urtext edition for the first time in time for the 200th anniversary of the composer?s birth. The edition reflects the latest state of research and the volume includes a Critical Commentary.- One of Mendelssohn?s most important secular works in an edition reflecting the latest research findings.- Bärenreiter Urtext for the Mendelssohn anniversary year 2009.- Critical Commentary (Eng)- Full score (BA9072) and vocal score (BA9072-90) for sale; performance material (BA9072-72) available for hire.