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| Friday, December 18
André and John salute Emily On today's date in 1999, in Quebec, soprano Renée Fleming and pianist Richard Bado gave the premiere of a new song cycle by André Previn -- his settings of three poems by the Great 19th century American poet, Emily Dickinson. Shortly after their premiere, Fleming made a recording of the new Dickinson songs with their composer at the piano. The three poems were: "As imperceptibly as grief," "Will there really be a morning," and "Good morning, midnight." By 1999, all these poems had been set to music dozens of times by dozens of composers. In fact, along with her great 19th century colleague, Walt Whitman, Dickinson reigns as an almost irresistible choice for settings by American composers. In 1992, Dickinson scholar Carlton Lowenberg published a book entitled "Musicians Wrestle Everywhere" (after the title of another famous Dickinson poem). This book catalogued no less than 1615 Dickinson song settings: the earliest, by a composer named Etta Parker, were published in 1896, eleven years after Emily's death. Not all Dickinson settings are small scale, intimate affairs for voice and piano, either. About 100 years after Ms. Parker's first setting, the American composer John Adams set two Dickinson poems to music as part of his super-sized piece for chorus and orchestra entitled "Harmonium." |  | Music Played on Today's Program: Additional Information:
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