Three Loves for Baritone and Piano

When I was writing this in 1998, I had in mind/on hand a marvelous baritone (Curtis Kinzey) and pianist (Cleve Kersh) to imagine the work into, not just technically and sonically, but also spiritually and philosophically. I wanted to write a little set that would give glimpses of a happy couple at progressive stages of the relationship, but combing anthology after anthology I found it difficult locating modern love poems free of misery and blame, or conversely, sappy sentimentality. Slightly less than modern, I eventually found these three to suit my idea well enough, with the bonus of also being charmingly quirky.