The Garden in the Brain
Seven Songs to words by Emily Dickinson - 2003

duration 13 minutes

1. Within my Garden, rides a Bird
2. You see I cannot see - your lifetime
3. What if I say I shall not wait!
4. The Perfect Look
5. A Dying Tiger
6. Two Butterflies
7. Good Morning - Midnight

A second Dickinson set was written in May and June 2003. There are common themes throughout: loss, and nature in delicate states. The musical language is possibly the most straightforward and vocally melodic of my cycles (perhaps also the most "English"!). Within my Garden moves in a gentle whirr as the bird goes ceaselessly about its business. A poignant, timeless ache pervades You see I cannot see - your lifetime. The juxtaposition with What if I say I shall not wait could not be starker, with impetuosity aplenty. A hovering transcendence and melodic beauty characterise The Perfect Look. This is followed by the tragic and helpless A Dying Tiger. Two Butterflies flit and skitter busily before disappearing out to sea, and the cycle ends with regretful loss and paradoxes unresolved in Good Morning - Midnight.

These songs formed the starting points for a number of instrumental pieces: Two Butterflies seeding the third movement of my 'cello/piano duo On the blue shore of silence; Good Morning - Midnight the third movement of my String Quintet; and What if I say I shall not wait the finale of my 3rd Piano Concerto.

Valentina Renesto and Giuseppe Bruno recorded an instrumental version for alto saxophone and piano in 2018 which you can hear here (opens in YouTube).

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SCORE (in a volume of my four "early" cycles)

A Dying Tiger (from The Garden in the Brain):
Xiaowen Fei (soprano), Nicholas Loh (piano)
Recorded at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore June 2021

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