He also gives the New York premiere of "Nash Menagerie," a cycle of Ogden Nash settings by Timothy Hoekman, who accompanies.
His "Sonette an Orpheus" (Op. 9), an early cycle of Rilke settings, is open on the piano.
But these seemed slight next to the profound beauty of Fauré's "Bonne chanson," a cycle of Verlaine settings alluringly sung by the mezzo Sasha Cooke.
He favoured short sacred pieces, vocal and instrumental, and these works of his culminated in a cycle of chorale settings, Geistliche Lieder auf den Choral, for five voices (1597).
A cycle of five settings of extracts from The Tempest, it clothes the disarmingly tonal vocal lines in shimmering textures from trios of flutes and cellos, along with three percussionists playing a variety of tuned and untuned wooden and metallic instruments.
After he could no longer play the piano, Britten composed a cycle of Robert Burns settings, A Birthday Hansel (1976), for voice and harp.
Before she knew it, she said at the time, she received an entire cycle of new Dickinson settings in the mail.
Mr. Harbison also offered "North and South," a cycle of six Elizabeth Bishop settings, some in a bluesy style, some more conventionally angular but neither spiky nor harsh.
Michael Tilson Thomas recently presented a cycle of Emily Dickinson settings with the San Francisco Symphony, and although he doesn't yet have a distinctive voice he has at least found an elegant and uncluttered style.
The half-hour cycle interleaves settings of Ralph Waldo Emerson – three of his Propositions – with poems by Seamus Heaney and Mahmoud Darwish and a Native American lullaby.
