Ozymandias

Ozymandias (2018)

Duration: approx. 6 mins 30 sec

Ozymandias is a dramatic song which explores the transience of power and the arrogance that may come with it. In this setting of the famous sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, the baritone narrates the tale, while the piano creates a mystical, often other-worldly sonic backdrop, transporting us through time and place.

Range - Bb2 - F4

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

-Percy Bysshe Shelley