Six Songs on Poems by Raymond Carver for baritone and piano Op.80 (2002) c.15'00"

1. Your Dog Dies
2. Music
3. Venice
4. Afghanistan
5. My Wife
6. Two Worlds

Commissioned by the Marilyn Horne Foundation

First performed on April 14, 2002 at Merkin Concert Hall, New York City by Lester Lynch, baritone and JJ Penna, piano

ABOUT

The Six Songs on Poems by Raymond Carver Op. 80 were commissioned by the Marilyn Horne Foundation and premiered on April 2002 by baritone Lester Lynch and pianist J. J. Penna at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City.

Raymond Carver, best known for his short stories, wrote an extensive amount of poetry, some of which was published in a volume of collected verse shortly before his death. The poems selected here show the great range of Carver’s poetry from the morbidly comical “Your Dog Dies” to the poignant “Two Worlds.”

“Your Dog Dies” is a parody of a Mahler song (a “Hundertotenlieder”  instead of a “Kindertotenlieder.”)  “Music,” about the scandals of Richard Wagner and his associates, begins with a quote from Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.  This song had special meaning for me because of my close friendship with Wagner’s daughter Friedelind, and the two summers I spent in Bayreuth as a result. “Venice” is a dark Barcarolle in 5-8 time. “Afghanistan” was written shortly after the US’s invasion of that country. The last two songs show the poet in two contrasting domestic situations.

RECORDINGS