SA(A) and Piano

“Where Love is Life” f rom Three Songs by Duncan Campbell Scott (in the public domain)

Where love is life

The roses blow,

Though winds be rude

And cold the snow,

The roses climb

Serenely slow,

They nod in rhyme

We know – we know

Where love is life

The roses blow.

Where life is love

The roses blow,

Though care be quick

And sorrows grow,

Their roots are twined

With rose-roots so

That rosebuds find

A way to show

Where life is love

The roses blow.

This song is effortless, immediate, and accessible, evoking the possibility of love,

compassion, and blossoming friendship. Love in the poem is not defined as romantic or

platonic; it remains unnamed. Love takes many forms, and so too do the musical phrases,

with their shifting meter and contour, which seek to capture the fleetingness, sensitivity, and

occasional unpredictability with which love enters our lives. I wrote the work during the

week between Christmas and New Year’s, as significant snowfall blanketed Waterloo,

Ontario—a calm and peaceful embrace as I composed, imagining what might be growing

unseen beneath the snow.