“…If you could only be here with me so I could share with you the happiness of these great poems, they would let you realize what we all now need more urgently: that transience is not separation…” - Rainer Maria Rilke to Adelheid Franziska von der Marwitz, January 14, 1919  (from The Dark Interval, translated and edited by Ulrich Baer)

A single reference contained in a book of Rilke’s letters was the catalyst for this program of little-known works for voice and piano from the early to mid-20th Century. The recital features settings of the Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren, drawn from his monumental cycles Les Heures Claires, Les Heures d’Après-midi and Les Heures du Soir, in works written by Nadia Boulanger and Raoul Pugno, and Belgian composer Irène Fuerison. Marion Bauer’s early work, Four Poems, Op. 16, (1924) with texts by John Gould Fletcher, celebrates and illuminates the exquisite, open beauty of the American West. Rarely heard songs by French composer Elizabeth Claisse and Dutch composer Henriette Bosmans complete the program.  

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