tears, unending tears

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On the cover page of the three-page autograph score, which is a fair copy and the only surviving score, Reddy subtitled this work, 'Song on a Ground Bass in the Baroque style'. It is undated, but may have been written in 1983, the same year as his setting of Shakespeare's tell me where is fancy bred. The scoring is unspecified, written on two staves - melody and bass - and the bass is not figured, but all the ornaments are indicated. The words are by Reddy, obviously indebted to Dowland's famous ayre of 1600, 'Flow my tears', in turn derived from his instrumental 'Lachrimae pavane'.