Composer Peter Lieberson wrote Neruda Songs, a 2005 Grammy-winning piece based on Pablo Neruda’s poems, for his wife, the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson before the mezzo-soprano’s untimely passing. The Washington Post called it “one of the most extraordinarily affecting artistic gifts ever created by one lover to another.”

In 2006, Boston Symphony Orchestra Maestro James Levine asked Lieberson to compose a second song cycle, just before Lorraine Hunt Lieberson passed away, and Lieberson himself was diagnosed with cancer. Recovering, Lieberson drew on a new love and his study of Buddhism, as well as his memory of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, to write this new piece, scored for baritone and orchestra, titled “Songs of Love and Sorrow.”

Lieberson, in an interview on Boston's NPR station WBUR, explains: “Elements of Lorraine and our love are definitely in this piece, and things that she evoked in me and that I remember about her ... And then there’s also elements of my new love, and there’s elements of life that has taken place over the last three years.”

The piece is being performed this week at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, featuring baritone Gerald Finley. In their review of the premiere, the Boston Globe calls it, “a major accomplishment and a fully worthy sequel.”

For more information on the performances, visit bso.org. To listen to Peter Lieberson's interview on WBUR, visit wbur.org.