American Muse

When it was proposed that I write a new song cycle for the American baritone Sanford Sylvan, I agreed enthusiastically. Perhaps under the influence of his fine performances of my earlier Four Poems of A.R. Ammons and of such works as John Adams?s The Wound-Dresser, a setting of Walt Whitman, I looked for texts that somehow dealt with American-ness ? with the national character (or rather, its many characters), the national experience (or rather, its diverse experiences), even the physical realities of the national landscape. I quickly discovered that you can?t describe America in twenty minutes, or even in a lifetime. Indeed, my cycle?s title borrows the first two words of the Invocation that opens Stephen Vincent Ben