10 July 2015 Benjamin Alunni and Nicolas Royez will create The Sick Rose for voice and piano by Samy Moussa.

A few words from the composers about the work: 

The prophetic books of William Blake have fascinated me for a long time. I waited, however, until 2012 before attempting to put one of his texts to music. I drew on his prophetic work The Book of Ahania (1795), and put the fifth and final chapter to music. This piece became Ahania's Lament for female voice and piano. In 2015, following a commission from the Académie du festival d’Aix-en-Provence, I decided to put another of William Blake’s texts, The Sick Rose, to music. It is taken from the second part of Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789). Completely different in nature, this collection gave me the opportunity to confront different musical challenges.The short poem, which is very enigmatic, is fascinating and provides the composer with a particular sound. As a matter of fact, the “O” in the beginning gave me the key for the composition of the piece and also shaped how it would sound, but it was the content of the text that inspired the musical form, without imitating the shape of the poem: that is expressed through the influence in the piano texture, which is extremely simple in the beginning and builds to an increasingly full accompaniment. The music quickly recovers its initial calm for the last stanza, however, remaining bleak, before evoking once again the very beginning of the piece.The voice processing avoids extremes while the reduced range promotes an understanding of the text. The Sick Rose can be sung by all types of voices, men and women included. 

Samy Moussa - the Sick Rose
for piano & voice
World premiere: July 10, 2015
Festival d'Aix-en-Provence
Benjamin Alunni, tenor
Nicolas Royez, piano

Spannish premiere: November 8, 2021
Palacio Euskalduna - Bilbao 
Lester Lynch, tenor
Erik Nielsen, piano
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