The Wages of Dying: A Performance Guide to Jake Heggie’s From The Book of Nightmares

Abstract

Abstract: This article introduces the reader to composer Jake Heggie’s song cycle for soprano, cello, and piano, From The Book of Nightmares. The composer set four poems from Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Galway Kinnell’s book-length poem The Book of Nightmares , which was inspired by Kinnell’s experiences during the Vietnam era and is framed by images of life through the births of his two children. Heggie drew from his own life experiences as a parent himself to capture, through music, the joy and struggle of parenthood. The article discusses both the poet’s and the composer’s biographies, then moves to Heggie’s stylistic influences and compositional process, as well as his most important works and their critical reception. The last portion of this article focuses on the commission, premiere, recording, and public reception of From The Book of Nightmares specifically, including short analyses of each song, thus serving as a performer’s guide to the cycle. The article is noteworthy for its many quotations derived from multiple personal interviews between Heggie and the author, which appear with permission from the composer.