Six Lowell Songs
My Six Lowell Songs, for soprano and piano, have been completed and will be recorded in September with the wonderful soprano Angela DeVenuto. The songs are settings of six poems by Amy Lowell, an important voice in early-20th century American poetry, especially through her innovations in poetic meter, language, and content associated with the Imagist movement.
The songs are interconnected through musical material (songs 1, 3, and 5, 2 and 4, 5 and 6, for example, share important motives and musical allusions); through poetic themes (1, 2, and 3; 4 and 5; 1 and 6) and, on the whole, create a dramatic narrative arc dealing with themes of solitude, despair, love, resignation and in general, the inherent loneliness that results from our estrangement, from the tension between the desire for connection and the necessity of solitude. I hope the songs capture Lowell’s creative voice and personality as much as they do my own.
The piece was begun while in residence at the Brush Creek Arts Foundation, and completed while at Copland House, as a winner of the Copland House Residency Award.
The cycle includes:
Solitaire
Vintage
Grotesque
A Sprig of Rosemary
A Rainy Night
Hoar-Frost
