Three Love Songs

'The background to Three Love Songs is suitably romantic. David Rendall met Diana Montague while they were singing in Così fan Tutte at the Metropolitan Opera. They married in 1990. Around that time, David wrote poems reflecting the dramas that led up to their marriage. Early in 1996, David asked me if I could set some of these poems to music, in time for their wedding anniversary. We met to practise the songs during breaks in his rehearsals at English National Opera, and performed them for Diana at their house in Hampshire on Saturday 24th February. I gave the manuscript to David, as part of his gift to Diana. Although I kept a copy, I didnt notice that it only included the odd-numbered pages, so these songs have never appeared in print. (Until now, my earliest published song-cycle was All You Who Sleep Tonight, written later that same year.) As far as I know, David did not perform these songs again, but from time to time he encouraged his son, Huw Montague Rendall, to consider them. He was happy to know that Huw was planning to bring them to life again. Sadly, he did not live to hear this performance. Jonathan Dove'