The background to Three Love Songs is suitably romantic. David Rendall met Diana Montague while they were singing in Così fan Tutte at the Metropolitan Opera. They married in 1990. Around that time, David wrote poems reflecting the dramas that led up to their marriage. Early in 1996, David asked me if I could set some of these poems to music, in time for their wedding anniversary. We met to practise the songs during breaks in his rehearsals at English National Opera, and performed them for Diana...