The Biographies of Solitude (1990)
for soprano, viola and cello

Duration: 8'00"
Instrumentation: soprano, viola and cello
Text by Irving Feldman

Premiere: Composer’s Forum, Eastman School of Music, Kilbourn Hall, Rochester, NY, July 1, 1992.
Publisher: Robert Paterson Music (ASCAP)

Audio Excerpt [MP3] | This work is currently unavailable.

Program Notes

When I was growing up in Buffalo, NY, my parents had a great collection poetry books. My father taught at the same university as Irving Feldman, and my parents had a few of his books of his poetry—some of them given as gifts from Feldman. The poem The Biographies of Solitude struck me as being a very good poem to set to music.

– Robert Paterson

Reviews and Quotes

"Many thanks for this... It's going to take me a while to get used to your very dramatic setting of what for me is an elegaic poem—of women mourning the wounded vitality of disappointed love. Meanwhile, I AM enjoying the drama you've created."

– Irving Feldman, Poet
MacArthur ("Genius Grant") Fellow