Art Songs

We were all out late last night having a good time. A nearby university was having an art song festival, and the Composer's work was being performed. He and I dropped the kids off at Grandpa's and went over to hear a marvelous piano/cello/soprano trio perform a song cycle of his. Artistically it was not breaking news, as he had written it about seven years ago, but it was delightful to hear it performed so beautifully, in front of an audience.

Of course there is a backstory (isn't there always?): on our tenth anniversary he had presented me with these songs (best present ever). He had taken three poems I had written, all set at dusk, written transcendent music for them, and recorded musicians performing them.

Here is the text of the poem set in summer, "Drought":

At dusk we walk the gravel lane.
The red dog snaps the wild chives drying in the ditch,
the dewberries withered on the stem.

These evenings we pray for rain.
The moon rises over the fading mimosa,
and we dream of waking to rain, to thunder.