Update Title: 36EA117D-7788-431D-8E5E-CC94886D020C

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Vier Nachtszenen provides musical commentary on four haiku texts of rather dark imagery.  A haiku is a very short, seventeen-syllable form of Japanese verse that is intended to evoke a wealth of thoughts and emotions.  Because of its brevity, the haiku must depend for its effect on the power of suggestion and a deliberate elusiveness:  the reader must “fill in” the outlines that have been drawn.

The music of Vier Nachtszenen seeks not only to reflect the moods suggested by the poetry, but also to amplify the implied meanings present in each haiku…and even to create additional associations.  This is accomplished in part by the allusion to and quotation of passages from well-known vocal works that echo the spirit and content of the haiku selected.  Too, the poems (and thus the movements) have been ordered in such a way as to establish an interrelationship among them – to form, if you will, a “story line” that is paralleled musically.  To divulge further the programmatic impetus behind the composition would defeat the very purpose of the work…and of the haiku themselves.

I.  Summer night:
        from cloud to cloud the moon  
            is swift in flight.
                              Ranko (1726-99)

II.  Grave mound, shake too!
         My wailing voice – 
             the autumn wind.
                              Basho (1644-1694)

III.  Night; and once again,
           while I wait for you, cold wind             
               turns into rain.
                              Shiki (1867-1902)

IV.  The beginning of spring:
           thoughts come – and there is loneliness;
               the autumn dusk is here.
                              Basho

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