Two Songs from Gitanjali
Rabindranath Tagore
John G. Parton
Written at the request of soprano Jenny Elliott, who'd initially asked for a single song, but as the text she'd selected was so short, I suggested she select another and make a pair. The result, finished after a few years of composing and recomposing (I find songs challenging to write, as I want to be as gracious and complimentary to the text as possible, and Tagore's language is particularly challenging in certain ways), she was presented with the finished product in 2001 and premiered them sometime thereafter in a recital at the Greenwich Village Music House.
They have since been performed a number of times, often, due to their brevity, as an encore, and both by sopranos and tenors.