for soprano, tenor, baritone, and piano. total duration: 12'.
i. Places Among the Stars (tenor, piano. dur: 3')
ii. I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon (soprano, piano, optional baritone. dur: 2')
iii. War is Kind (baritone, piano. dur: 7')
May be performed individually or as a set.
Program Notes: Three Crane Songs was written intermittently over a period of two years and is approximately twelve minutes in length. Although the songs are intended to be performed as a set, the texts are not thematically unified. Instead, each song concerns itself with one of the many themes that recur again and again in Crane’s poetry and fiction.
The first song, Places Among the Stars, concerns itself with longing and the burdens of love. The second, I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon, is a playful fable about the absurdities of the human condition. The final poem, War is Kind, deals with the horror and irrationality of war.
By exploring these diverse themes, the song set is meant to give the listener a more holistic taste of Stephen Crane’s oeuvre. Each poem is also set for a different voice type, according to the needs of the text.