A Poet To His Beloved for tenor, flute, string quartet and piano Op.40 (1993) c.15'00"
poems by William Butler Yeats

I. A Poet To His Beloved
II. He Remembers Forgotten Beauty
III. He Hears The Cry Of The Sedge
IV. He Thinks Of His Past Greatness When A Part Of The Constellations Of Heaven
V. He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead
VI. He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven

Commissioned by Susan and Elihu Rose

Dedicated to Robert White

First performed on February 17th, 1993 at Alice Tully Hall in NYC by Robert White, tenor; James Galway, flute; Brian Zeger, piano; and the Lark Quartet 

RECORDINGS

REVIEWS

“The centerpiece was Lowell Liebermann’s “A Poet to His Beloved”…Radiant, resonant sonorities are the most striking aspect of this piece. Liebermann has a clever way of couching harmonies in ostinatos and distributing them widely across the ranges of the instruments to make the rhythms interlock and glow. The color of that chordal glow is often unpredictable; dissonant chords often resolve to unexpected voicings or spellings, especially at the end of phrases…The flute lines…imitate the voice and trail behind it like a wake or waft about it like curls of perfumed cigarette smoke.”
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

“The best of the song cycles presented Sunday is a collection of six poems by Yeats set to music by Lowell Liebermann, titled “A Poet to His Beloved.” Colorfully orchestrated for flute, piano and string quartet, Liebermann’s work carefully mirrors Yeats’ vivid verbal imagery through tonal sonorities of the instruments, while his expressive writing captures the pervasive solemnity that permeates the poems.”
Syracuse Herald-Journal