Matters of Life and Death

Few poets have captured the breadth, the embodiment, and the joy of every aspect of human existence quite the way Walt Whitman did. Through his texts, we see how he reveled in and marveled at human life—and death. Settings of portions of his Lincoln elegy—When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d—and Whispers of Heavenly Death by such living composers as Dan Locklair and Stephen Chatman are paired with Vincent Persichetti’s exuberant and life-affirming Celebrations.