Dickinson Songs are settings of four poems by Emily Dickinson, taken from different creative periods. The poems are ordered according to a "story": the psychological development of the female heroine. Both characters of the cycle (voice and piano) are subjected to individual development. From extended techniques to pure, classical expression - from voice to pure singing, in the case of piano to the classical keyboard technique. I wrote the cycle in three phases: summer of 2002, spring of 2003 and a thorough revision in June 2005.

Marián Lejava

Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn
Indicative that suns go down;
The notice to the startled
The darkness is about to pass.
The first day´s night had come
And grateful that a thing
So terrible - had been endured -
I told my soul to sing -
She said her strings were snapt -
Her bow - to atoms blown -
And so to mend her - gave me work
Until another morn -
And then - a day as huge
As yesterdays in pairs,
Unrolled its horror in my face -
Until it blocked my eyes -
My brain - begun to laugh -
I mumbled - like a fool -
And tho´´tis years ago - that day -
My brain keeps giggling - still.
And something´s odd - within -
That person that I was -
And this one - do not feel the same -
Could it be madness - this?
The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;
And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its inquisitor,
The liberty to die.
So give me back to death -
The death I never feared
Except that it deprived of thee -
And now, by life deprived,
In my own grave I breathe
And estimate its size -
Its size is all that hell can guess -
And all that heaven was.