Name of poem or cycle	Year composed	Approximate time
Angelique for Gerhard and Elisabetd Eising	2006	22 minutes
Seraphine Three songs from the cycle sung by Peter Schöne Piano Samuel Bächli. These three mp3 files are documentary recordings of three songs from Seraphine that were recorded in concert in Erfurth in 2010.	2006	27 minutes
Yolante und Marie the cycle sung by Torben Jürgens, piano Dirk Wedmann	2008	11 1/2 minutes
In der Fremde for Peter Weber Schiffer and Elisabeth Stippler the cycle sung by Torben Jürgens, piano Dirk Wedmann	2009	8 1/2 minutes
Balsatzar for Iris Schönhorn and Amos Dolev	2010	9 1/2 minutes
Die Lorelei for Shoshana Frendsdorff	2010	4 1/2 minutes
Die Libelle	2010	6 minutes
Emma	2011	8 minutes
Hans ohne Land	2011	7 minutes
Allnächtich im Traume for Emily Ezust	2011	2 1/2 minutes
Der Philanthrop	2011	6 minutes
Guter Rath	2011	2 1/2 minutes
Epilog	2011	3 minutes
Schöpfungslieder	2011	8 minutes

Note. . . all thecycles that I have composed include all the poems in the case of the cycles and all of the text of the poems. i did not pick and choose from Heine but respected his works as totalities.

To read the poems in the original German please go to this site.
Many of the poems have been translated and you can find translation by using Google.

Me and my Heinelieder

The story began a few years ago [6 or 8] when i was in Germany for some project or other.
I was visiting my friends the Eisings in Stuttgart. Gerhard was celebrating his birthday. He must have been 50 then or 55. There was a dinner party in a very nice resturaunt with lots of fine things to eat and drink.
I remember the dialogue with Gerhard about what to get him for his birthday. A tie? A shirt? I would buy you a new Porche but its a little out of my range -- and then the idea popped into my head -- why dont you choose a poem that appeals to you and i will compose it for you. You choose the poem and i will be your house composer -- it sounds better in German. He came back with a poem from Angelique: you can find the text in German with a translation here.

He had a photo copy of the German for me and that very night while asleep part of me was working on the composition. Or else somebody else had composed the song and put it in my head the next morning when I awoke.
Composed for male voice and piano the piece was kind of like a pocket opera with the subtexts composed but the funny thing was that how I understood the poem -- how I interpreted it -- created the inner feeling even thought there were quite a few words that I didn't "know" in one sense of th word buy understood in another.

Later I decided to compose the entire cycle in the frame work of a desicion reached a few years ago about forms that i have to compose before joining that orchestra in the sky. a string quartet, a piano trio, some solo piano music, a wind quintet, a concerto and a song cycle.
So the cycle Angelique composed itself with my midwifery but I felt that I hadn't said all that I wanted to say in the media so a composed Seraphine.
I found the Peter Shea site and got in touch with him and he sang a song or two from Seraphine and asked me to compose a cycle for him. Hence Yolenta und Marie. The other poems came in bursts over the next couple of years.

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