Love in the Time of COVID

American composer Peter Lieberson (1946–2011) wrote a cycle of five heartfelt songs for mezzo-soprano and orchestra specifically for his wife, luminous singer Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (1954–2006), based on passionate love poetry by famed 20th-century Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. “Amor mío, si muero y tú no mueres” (My love, if I die and you do not) is the final song of the set. The cycle, which won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award, was commissioned and premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Pianist and composer George Walker (1922–2018) knew his grandmother – his mother’s mother – very well. She had experienced much during her long life, including losing her first husband when he was sold; she herself managed to escape slavery. About a year after she died, the 24-year-old Walker composed his first string quartet. When he was given the chance to hear its poetic slow movement performed by a string orchestra, he added the title Lament and dedicated it as an elegy “To my grandmother.” Later titled Lyric for Strings, the six-minute work – he continued to call it “my grandmother’s piece” – became his best-known and most-performed work in a long and remarkable career. In 1996, he became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music for Lilacs, which Walker wrote for soprano and orchestra.

Most critics and music lovers acknowledge that the slow movement of Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony (1902), the Adagietto, is a love letter to his wife Alma, and it’s easy to see why. Written just for harp and strings, the 10-minute movement begins with deeply touching tenderness, gradually becoming more intense and passionate, all the while exhibiting exquisite sonic beauty. Not surprisingly, it is the most frequently performed movement Mahler ever composed, from one of his most frequently performed symphonies.