Program Note:

Daron Hagen's art songs provided the basis for these six "love songs" for cello and piano, assembled by the composer (and edited by cellist Robert LaRue) for a recital the two gave together on 5 November 1987 at Trinity Church, in Denver, Colorado, as part of the Denver Chamber Orchestra's American Music Festival. The first song began as Little Uneasy Song, a setting of Reine Hauser; the second began as a setting of the great Echo's Song of Ben Johnson; the third started as a setting of William Blake's Ah! Sun-Flower; the fourth as Specimen Case, a setting of a fragment from Walt Whitman's "Specimen Days" journal; the fifth began as a setting of Washing Her Hair by Sarah Gorham; and the last began as a setting of Anne Sexton's haunting poem Just Once. Fingerings are provided that may serve to give players an insight into some of the coloristic choices that LaRue and Hagen made while rehearsing and touring with the set.