Wallace Stevens
2(II=picc).afl.bfl(=afl).1.corA.2.bcl.dbcl(=bcl).1.dbn-1.1.0.0-perc(2):tam-t/guiro/SD(low, hi)/wdbl(lg, sm)/tamb/4bongos(low to hi)/3cym(hi)/crash cym/vib/lion's roar/BD/4tom-t(low to hi)/2cym(low, med)/4tpl.bl(low to hi)/2bongos(low, hi)/tamb-pft
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Boosey & Hawkes (Hendon Music)
"In all of the songs, the voice is almost constant, smoothly cresting and subsiding but ever-present, almost submerged in sparse textures of wind, brass and percussion. In the tiny Life Is Motion, there’s just a dancing lyrical line and rattles of tambourine and temple blocks and a quiet cymbal stroke; in The Woman in Sunshine, the baritone duets lambently with the oboe, with only a piano and a vibraphone for company. And the alluringly radiant last song, This Is the Thesis..., softens to a tranquil pianissimo, instruments falling away as the voice alone finds the metaphysical ‘merely in living as and where we live’."
New York Times
"This is a dramatic, vibrant work, direct and forceful when so much of late Carter is playful and elusive. The composer was a sensitive and intelligent reader of literature, and the music articulates strong yet mysterious reactions to the poems."
New York Classical Review