Date of Composition: 2009; rev. 2016, 2025

Duration: 13 Minutes

Text: D. H. Lawrence

Language: English

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I. New Moon

II. Tarantella

III. Invocation to the Moon

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Program Notes: Three Lunar Cycles is a setting of three poems by English novelist and poet D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930). It exists in three versions; Soprano and Orchestra, Soprano and Piano, and Soprano and Marimba. Each of the poems set in some way refer to the Moon or lunar activities and are meant to evoke and illuminate an other-wordly landscape. The first poem, “New Moon,” (1928-29) is a slow ballade to the Moon. Through a movement of subtly changing and augmented harmonies, the marimba conjures the terrain of space through tremolos while the Soprano soars above the shifting harmonies. “Tarantella” (1916) is a lively dance with a slow and sentimental waltz where the Soprano proclaims “Dance to the sliding sea and the moon.” The third song, “Invocation to the Moon,” (1932) is dynamic mosaic of changing and developing moods and tones ranging from joyous and ecstatic to lyrical and tranquil. The fleeting and relentlessly changing tempi and form of this song are reminiscent of the unknown and distant, foreign and strange topography of the Moon. Here the Soprano belts, “Moon, Oh Moon, great lady of heavenly few!” 

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Performance History:

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