Description
A setting of three Emily Dickinson poems (Syllable, Word, Phrase) for piano & soprano voice. Syllable was selected for performance in the 1988 New Music Festival at the University of Wisconsin. The song cycle was selected for performance at the Region 1 meeting of the Society of Composers in 1992. Emily Dickinson did not title the poems. The titles were selected based on the context of the poems. Duration of the entire song cycle is about 3 1/2 minutes: Syllable and Word are approximately 1 minute each and Phrase is about 1 1/2 minutes. 32 pages.
Syllable
Could mortal lip divine
the undeveloped Freight
Of a delivered syllable
"Would crumble with the weight.
Word
A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That Day.
Phrase
I found the phrase to every thought
I ever had - but One -
And that - defies me -
As a Hand did try to chalk the Sun
To Races - nurtured in the Dark -
How would your own - begin?
Can Blaze be shown in Cochineal -
Or Noon - in Mazarin?