Cheryl Frances-Hoad (born 1980)
Cheryl Frances-Hoad was born in Essex, England, and studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School, the University of Cambridge (for her BA in Music and an MPhil in Composition), and Kings College London, where she earned her PhD in Composition.
My Fleeting Angel for piano trio was composed in 2005 and is based on a short story by Sylvia Plath entitled “The Wishing Box” about the separate dream lives of a husband and wife. It has three movements: a slow Larghetto, a scherzo-like Allegro Spiritoso that incorporates Bulgarian rhythms, and a waltz-like finale that Cheryl Frances-Hoad has said represents “the confusion of emotions” that a reader might experience at the end of Plath’s story.
The always interesting and inventive Merz Trio has combined Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s My Fleeting Angel with their own arrangement of O Fiery Spirit by Hildegard von Bingen, fluidly leaping over an period of 900 years.