The Voices: Five Songs for Mezzo-Soprano and Piano

Abstract

"The Voices" is a German song cycle for mezzo-soprano and piano. I found a set of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke whose haunting stories and imagery captivated me. "The Voices" contains one introductory poem and nine other poems that are songs of the destitute. Rilke wrote the poems as songs for many suffering people whose voices are rarely heard in society. I was inspired to set five of these poems to music