Abstract
Illusions: Three Songs for Baritone and Ensemble (2004) is a set of three songs based on the poetry of Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The piece is scored for clarinet, violin, horn, baritone, piano, and two percussionists. Each song presents slightly different perspectives on illusions and reflects on the contradiction between illusions and reality. A variety of compositional techniques are employed to create the atmosphere surrounding the specific perspective of each song. In As if a Phantom Caress?d Me subtle shifts in texture and timbre support the changing emotional and psychological states of the protagonist. In contrast, Memory evokes dream-like illusions and the intense bias of the human will away from these vanishing ?memories.? The last song, Illusions, mirrors the powerful struggle of the human attempt to resolve the contradiction. In the end, the greatest illusion is the self-delusion that one possesses the capacity to do so.
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