We always receive positive comments about this song.

People love the poetry in the song.

People love the dreamy atmosphere conjured up by the music.

We have fallen in love with the song ourselves.

It’s a song about dreaming of childhood friends.

It is simply beautiful music.

It is now ranked #1 on Trinity College Choir’s Youtube collection!

And so here are the lyrics to the gifted Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds’ Only in Sleep again.

Only in sleep I see their faces,
Children I played with when I was a child,
…

Only in sleep Time is forgotten —
What may have come to them, who can know?
….

The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces,
I met their eyes and found them mild —
Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder,
And for them am I too a child?

One of the most wonderful things about singing works by a living composer is that, if in doubt, you can talk directly with the creator: this was the composer’s words to us about how to interpret a song we sang at last year’s performance..  

See Part 2 which is about contemporary American songs.