There is in American painting a dynamic movement known as abstract expressionism, led by such well-known artists as Jackson Pollack, Franz Kline, and Willem de Kooning.

In Music there is an equivalent--and equally important--development, which we call atonal expressionism. Its lineage stretches from Carl Ruggles and Roger Sessions to Stefan Wolpe and Elliott Carter. The work of Miriam Gideon stands out as a major and individualistic realization of this style.

One of the characteristics of abstract expressionism is that it is highly intense and personal; nonrepresentational art, free of references to the outside world, must of necessity build from its own premises and reflect an interior emotional world. This experience is exactly what we find in Miriam Gideon's music. There is a drama and lyricism here, highly controlled yet nevertheless personal, economical yet full of fantasy.

Although she is well known as an instrumental composer (until recently, instrumental music has dominated new-musical life), Gideon's fondness for the voice and her use of lyric and dramatic poetry play a major role in her output, which includes an opera, several choral works, and many songs and song cycles with piano and various instrumental ensembles.

Through the choice of texts and their settings, a dialogue is established between the poet's images of love, nature, or death and the composer's lyric fantasy--highly vocal, freely intense, and atonal. The music on this recording well represents this evocative side of her work.