Mike's Notes
"The Baby's Dance"
for women's chorus and piano

Now Playing
at Walton Music

This piece will soon be available through www.waltonmusic.com. The poem "The Baby's Dance" was composed by 19th century poet Ann Taylor, who was especially inclined towards children's poetry. I found the poem very simple and graceful. The music, written for women's voices and piano, is not a lullaby but rather a song for playtime, sung from a mother to her baby. Delicate piano gestures and the medium-high voices evoke, hopefully, the care and tenderness of this moment spent with a child. Apart from a few lush harmonic shifts, "The Baby's Dance" is a simple sketch of the grace of motherhood.

"Three Songs for voice and piano"
Sample from "It takes no time at all"

These three songs will hopefully become the first of many. You can click on the sample above to listen to the first song from the set. Years ago, when I used to set the poetry of Robert Frost, I contacted the Frost Estate about obtaining the rights to Frost's poetry. I received a form letter I'm sure, since hundreds of composers continually seek these rights, which basically informed me that Frost did not particularly like his poems set to music. Included in the letter were several quotes by the poet himself, but Frost's quote that "my poems are a songs already" really got to me the most. I always loved Frost's poetry, long before I set it to music, and although I am proud of the music I have written to his poems, I came to realize that simply speaking his poetry to myself aloud produced a deeper effect.

Thus, a new idea was born: I decided to write some of my own "texts." I didn't think of them as poems, because I knew I'd be setting them to music eventually. I also didn't think of it as songwriting, because I knew the vocal part and accompaniment would be fully composed in the tradition of an art song. The three texts I came up with described simple things from everyday life, but when I got done with the music, I was very happy with the results. The songs felt very "real," and audiences seemed to initially connect with them as they did with pop songs, but continued listening to them as with art music. Now, I am working on many more of these texts in the hopes that they will become clear and refreshing music for solo voice and choral music.

So, does this mean we should never again set others' poems to music? Of course not! In fact, I'm sure many poets are intrigued or even delighted by hearing their poems set to music. Still, you might find out for yourself how the poet feels about his/her work becoming a song - for the second time.


"Soldier's Elegy"
for TB chorus and piano

Now Playing
at Walton Music

"Soldier's Elegy," also available through www.halleonard.com is a setting of the anonymous poem "I Want to Go Home." Written for men's voices and piano, this piece is the lamentation, or prayer, perhaps, of a soldier who fears the battlefield. The soldier's narrative refers to the "Alleyman," a British Soldier's slang for a German soldier in World War I, but I feel the text also speaks of a deeper and timeless theme: human frailty and the brutality of war. An opening piano motive, repeated and sequenced but retaining the same rhythm, is later overlapped by a distant "march" motive, calling the soldier to battle. The piece climaxes as the men's voices cry out for the calm of the ocean, but then yield and are resigned to a final, quiet pleading.