As is so often the case with Shakespeare, undying love and bittersweet pain are inextricably linked. In the scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream set to music by David Massong, Lysander and Hermia, who is to be wed to another, bid each other farewell and promise to meet again in a secret place to be married. However, the confidence and determination of the two lovers, which alternates between the women’s and men’s voices, is dimmed. A dark cloud of desperate and intensifying exclamations in the individual women’s voices rises briefly and gradually dissipates again.