Program Note

The Letter (1943) is the setting a letter from Partch’s hobo pal Pablo that he excerpted from his Depression-era diary Bitter Music (1940). Also from 1943 comes the composer’s deeply serious setting of an essay on loneliness penned by Thomas Wolfe. Dark Brother’s probing text surely resonated with the composer’s own solitary wanderings, clearly articulating his own misgivings about the struggles of the truly creative person in a modern world which most often turns a deaf ear to innovation.