Lieberson

Peter Lieberson, the American composer, has died. I'd only recently discovered his work, led to it through the incomparably sublime voice of the great mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, whom he married in 1999. His luscious settings of five love poems by Pablo Neruda were composed for her – Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs shimmer in this music, although there's a flavour of their South American heritage too – and their story is poignant. As the singer traces the tale of love from first flush to death do us part, the knowledge that Hunt Lieberson was battling breast cancer at the time of their writing is hard to forget. Tragically, she died in 2006. In this extract, recorded with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under James Levine, Hunt Lieberson sings 'Amor mio, si muero y tu no mueres':

My love, if I die and you don't, let's not give grief an even greater field...this meadow where we find ourselves, O little infinity! We give it back. But Love, this love has not ended, it is like a long river."