Previous CDs

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• "Journey Long, Journey Far"
  
  
  My second CD pairs two lengthy and ambitious vocal pieces with a shorter instrumental composition positioned between them. The cover painting, "The Big Sleep" by the late Southern California artist Jen Trute, coincidentally matches some imagery in "Premonition," the third song of the opening cycle.
  
  "The Dark-Eyed Chameleon" (2007) recollects a deeply traumatic experience of some years ago. I believe the lyrics and music speak for themselves quite clearly, and I don't wish to say anything further about the subject matter. I consider this the most intense and personal thing I've done, and its realization owes a lot to Mary Jaeb, a San Diego-area soprano who wonderfully combines technical brilliance and a sincere conveying of emotion.
  
  As a vehicle for vocal and piano, "Chameleon" has some important differences from the Rilke cycle on my first CD. I was working there with short, existing texts and trying to keep their starkness and brevity in mind as I wrote the music, which by definition adds an expansive dimension to the overall artistic palette. In "Chameleon," I was writing my own lyrics as the composition moved along and thus had more dramatic and structural freedom, and a larger array of possible directions to choose from.
  
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  Curiously (or perhaps not, given my musical history), the emotion suffusing "Chameleon" brings rock-like ideas to the fore in a number of spots. This element felt natural to me here and I didn't attempt to suppress it; the best rock music is very much about emotion.

  "Gentle Spirit" (2008) -- like "One Long Peace" and "Mystic Brave Bird" from my first CD -- is a tribute to a dear departed one. I first met Holly Popper in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1968 and she was my closest woman friend when I was in my twenties. She met a senseless death in a New York City street accident at the age of 33.

  I chose to eschew lyrics for this piece, but it may manage to express a few pictorial ideas anyway. It is not so much a portrait of Holly as an imagining of what she might be able to tell us if she was able to return from another world, one where her life was not cut short but able to grow into the fullness of experience it was surely developing. I wanted to evoke the sense of a visit from a treasured friend who has much to say but can only stay for a little while.

  "The True Believers" (2006) is the last thing I wrote before leaving the Bay Area. It's unique in several ways -- the first time I employed a male voice, the first time I wrote for two singers, my most lengthy effort at lyric writing up to that point. The soprano is Katy Stephan, whose artistry I so much admire that I've asked her to record three of my compositions. The baritone is Richard Mix, a versatile and powerful singer whose deep tones make for an effective contrast with Katy's.

  The text of this piece derives, of course, from recent global events and my pondering of them over a span of decades that includes my career as a journalist specializing in foreign news. My intention was to depict the mindset of religion-based terrorists -- in particular, their grandiosity, self-absorption and lack of critical thinking -- in such a way that the "lay person" may gain some insight into how people with at least some degree of sensitivity can be transformed into self-righteous murderers.

  I opted to let them tell their own story -- except at the end, when they are informed that their ruinous actions have betrayed whatever justification their cause might have and will deny them the glorious martyrdom they seek. The piece concludes with the hope that those who inflict pain on the innocent may someday come to understand the immorality of that position.

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  "Songs of Life, Love and Death"
  
  
  "One Long Peace" (2004) is built around a beautiful poem written by the late Herbert Steinhouse, a longtime friend of my mother, after she took her own life in England in 1991. It's a sprawling and at times tumultuous work -- qualities, in my opinion, reflective of her life in general -- but is nourished throughout by a strong vein of lyricism, in keeping with her love of beauty and the soaring quality of her humanist spirit. The piece ends in a swirl of mysticism and deep shadows.
  
  This project marked the first time that I worked with Katy Stephan. I was struck by her quick and intuitive grasp of the subject matter, very creative array of vocal techniques, and professionalism under some trying circumstances that cropped up during the recording of the piece.
  
  "Mystic Brave Bird" (2005) is a remembrance of my best friend of three decades, Christian Osborne, a musician of great gifts who played with John Lennon while still in his teens but died in obscurity in Los Angeles in 2004. Christian was an extremely talented and charismatic guy whose unflagging and often solitary dedication to his art was a great example to anyone seeking to know the elemental truths in life. He helped me in more ways than I could ever describe and is sorely missed by many other people.
  
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  This piece's mysterious beginning and subsequent instrumental development attempt to depict some aspects of his personality before a rock song structure asserts itself, finally dissolving into the pathos of his untimely passing. I wrote most of the words, but several lines are borrowed from individual songs of Christian's. Karen Hall's vocal performance is excellent throughout.

  "Five Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke" (2004) is a setting of some of Rilke's fairly early works. Composing these pieces was quite a challenge, as I was intent on making every note count to an extent that I had not achieved previously. The texts are so interesting that musical inspiration was never a problem; the biggest issue was self-control -- resisting the temptation to indulge in instrumental developments any more lengthy than those I eventually settled on.

  This was the first piece I wrote for piano and voice. The piano parts are quite simple, but since I shy away from ornamentation anyway, I consider them wholly adequate for the task. Katy Stephan's vocal renditions were all I could ask for -- and more. She really got inside these pieces, which had only been completed a few weeks before we recorded them.

  "The Girl Made of Wood: Seven Poems of Pablo Neruda" (2001) is the oldest of the compositions on these two CDs. The writing of it was for the most part a magical experience, not surprising considering the near hallucinatory qualities of Neruda's gorgeous and moving imagery. In retrospect, the work is perhaps a bit too long, but I found myself unable to discard any of the individual movements since they all had great meaning for me. In its most inspired moments, “The Girl” evokes the sense of walking through an enchanted forest.

  Elizabeth Eshleman was extremely generous not only with her wonderful vocal talents but with the time she was willing to spend to realize this cycle. I will always be indebted to her for that dedication.

The Singers On These CDs:

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