Evening sets a brief poem by Sara Teasdale, who took her own life after an unhappy marriage and the suicide of a close friend and admirer, fellow-poet Vachel Lindsay. This magical little tone poem is really an exploration of just a few chords, simple triads that are subtly piqued as they frequently telescope into each other. Against this static backdrop, sopranos and altos limn the dusk chorus and a first glimpse of the stars. The piece doesn’t really go anywhere, it simply is, full of innocent wonderment at the close of the day.
— from notes by Gabriel Jackson © 2011
The charm of the poetry of American author Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) hides in a pure, even clear romanticism which is painted with the brush strokes of simple language. Her poem Evening carried me off on wings of birds and brought me to a place that I have only seen in my imagination — the green foot of a mountain on the shore of the sea, a blue sky with a few streaks of white, the sunset and a self-satisfied warm wind that drifts into sleep, birds, and, oh, this beautifully scented air... Summer. Stepping over the threshold of one evening.
— from notes by the composer
