Description
The composer writes: the American poet Hart Crane was born in Garrettsville, Ohio, in 1899, and spent much of his (short) adult life in New York City. He was much influenced by the modernist style of T.S. Eliot, and is best known for his epic poem, The Bridge. He died in an apparent suicide, jumping from a ship in the Gulf of Mexico in 1932.
The four poems I have chosen to set to music were written by Crane in the 1920s. They are introspective and observational in character, capturing the mood and spirit of their varied subjects.
I: Forgetfulness; II: Garden Abstract; III: October-November; IV: My Grandmother's Love Letters