Timothy Bowers

Last Words 2

We are delighted to announce publication of three very special song cycles by Timothy Bowers. The last words of famous people, whether real or invented, exert a strange fascination. Breaking with the tradition that a song cycle is a setting of poetry, Timothy Bowers has chosen the last words of fourteen famous (in one case infamous) characters from history and two comic/ironic epitaphs by Byron as his texts. Each collection provides a short (c 7') concert work with settings ranging from fifteen seconds to five minutes duration. Book 2 is for tenor and piano and traverses the widest emotional range within one volume. The poignant last words of a King, a President, a great writer and an heroic explorer sit beside the vengeful rantings of a prisoner sent for execution.