12 Poems of Emily Dickinson

12 Poems of Emily Dickinson (1950) is an impressive accidental achievement for a composer with “no intention of composing a song cycle.” The germ of the project—Copland’s longest work for solo voice—was “The Chariot,” a poem the composer “fell in love with,” continuing to add song after song until he reached the final dozen. Each is dedicated to a different friend, including composers Elliott Carter and Alberto Ginastera. Originally scored for voice and piano, the composer later orchestrated eight of the songs as a stand-alone set. There’s no obvious theme or narrative through a cycle united solely by Dickinson’s preoccupations—“nature, death, life, eternity”—and the expansive lyricism of her style. While listeners can’t see the poet’s punctuation, the abrupt energy of her signature dashes is echoed in the sudden leaps of Copland’s vocal line: the breezy, exuberant opening of “Dear March,” the rising surge embedded in the title question of “Why do they shut me out of heaven?”, even the rhapsodic gestures embedded in the Mahlerian “Heart, we will forget him.” If the voice leads these declamatory, text-driven settings, the piano supplies a vivid, cinematic backdrop, full of birdsong (“Nature the gentlest mother”), brilliant shooting stars (“Going to heaven”), a pounding drum beat in “I felt a funeral in my brain,” and a chorale-like introduction for “I’ve heard an organ talk.”