Six songs for tenor and piano, the first authorized settings of the poetry of Harold Pinter.

for tenor and piano / 20 min.
in six movements
I Know the Place / The Doing So / Always Where You Are / All of That / Later / I’ll Tear Off My Terrible Cap

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Program Note

I have been an enthusiast for the plays of Harold Pinter since taking part in student productions in college. When I discovered he had published poetry, I immediately wanted to set it to music. During a year of studies in England, I managed to contact the great playwright and arrange a meeting at which I played him some of the songs, and received the first permission he ever granted to set his words to music.

I originally set ten poems to music, then revised the set completely and reduced the number to six. Pinter’s poems, like his plays, combine horror and humor with complete honesty and cutting wit. In some of the songs the music mirrors his wordplay in a formal sense; in others, I sought to catch the mood, either somber or antic.

—Theodore Wiprud

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