who knows if the moon’s
for solo soprano
Programme note

This piece is a short setting of E. E. Cummings' well-known Who knows if the moon's. i broke off working on it in May 1995 following the abrupt death of my father, and could never bring myself to return to it. i eventually rediscovered the sketches and finally managed to complete the piece in June 2014.

Text

who knows if the moon’s
a balloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky—filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should

get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we’d go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody’s ever visited,where

always
               it’s
                       Spring)and everyone’s

in love and flowers pick themselves