From: Four Views of Love
Category: Vocal Music / Art Song
Instrumentation: male voice, piano
Duration: 2.5 minutes
Difficulty: Upper intermediate
Text / Source: Poem by W. B. Yeats
Publisher: North Star Music / Alymar

When You Are Old is a song of lost love and the only work in Four Views of Love intended for male voice. Setting W. B. Yeats’s poem, the song reflects on memory, regret, and the lasting presence of a love that was not fully received.

The work is through-composed, though it closes with a return to the opening line, giving the song a circular and reflective shape. Lyrical throughout, it builds toward a soaring dramatic climax near the end before returning to a more inward emotional space.

Suitable for upper-intermediate performers, When You Are Old calls for sustained lyricism, emotional maturity, and careful pacing toward the climactic point. The return of the opening line should feel both remembered and transformed.