Written between 1958 and 1960, these songs are the first of my compositions involving voice. Unlike the James Joyce settings that were to follow (I HEAR AN ARMY; NIGHT CONJURE—VERSE; SYZYGY) and my many settings of Lewis Carroll, these vocal lines are relatively simple and unadorned. The high—flying, extraverted virtuosity of that later style is a different world from these smoothly flowing, conjunct lines which are written well within the treble staff and attempt to evoke moods of lieder—like intimacy and youthful romantic yearning.

Rather than the traditional vocal 'accompaniment,' the piano parts for these songs are really more like tiny piano concertos and were written to be performed by myself at a time when I was still an aspiring piano virtuoso. They are florid and elaborate—swirling embroideries of notes surrounding the voice with (what seems to me NOW) an almost reckless abandon.

In DOVE SONG insistent piano tremolos and trills suggest not only the fluttering wings of the dove but also the restless, expectant emotion of the text.

SHE WEEPS OVER RAHOON is a somber, quite dissonant song leavened sporadically by the appearance of unexpected dominant seventh chords. (The music for the opening verse, written in 1958, is the first that I ever composed and wrote down. It remains unchanged from that day.)

"Frail," "rosefrail," "frailest"—such words from A FLOWER GIVEN TO MY DAUGHTER suggested its delicate, fleeting, scherzo-like quality.

MONOTONE could almost be called a piece for solo piano with vocal accompaniment, so embellished is the piano writing. As the piece progresses, a tension is created between the slow moving. 'monotonous' harmony and the increasingly elaborate proliferation of motes which engulfs it.