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Song cycle: Lucy (Wordsworth), A Satirical Elegy (Swift), Highland Mary (Burns), The Album (Day Lewis), At Casterbridge Fair (Hardy).
The title ‘Former Beauties’ is taken from the subtitle Thomas Hardy gave to the last item of this collections of songs, ‘At Casterbridge Fair’. Perhaps I extended the notion of a ‘former beauty’ a little far by including ‘A Satirical elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General’ written by Jonathan Swift in 1722. The person Swift had in mind was John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and it is clear that mourning is the last thing on the outraged poet’s mind. This song cycle was the first composition to which I was tempted to give an opus number but, having failed to do so at the time, I later took my cue from an early string quartet in E-flat major by Joseph Haydn (Hoboken No. II:6) and called it Op. 0.