daron aric hagen

1. Love in a Life (Robert Browning)
2. Congedo (Nuar Alsadir)
3. Ample Make This Bed (Emily Dickinson)
4. Stanzas for Music (George Gordon, Lord Byron)
5. The Waking (Theodore Roethke)
6a. To You (Walt Whitman)
6b. To You (Walt Whitman)
7. Love (Thomas Lodge)

Love in a Life is one of Hagen's song groups organized by topic — in this case, love. Each song was originally created as a 'one off,' and saved by the composer in a file marked 'Love Songs' until finally being folded during the Spring of 1999 into the song group. It was premiered as a set by Paul Kreider, accompanied by the composer, on 11 June 1999 at the Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The title song, Love in a Life, was written in Philadelphia, completed on 2 November 1981, and premiered by baritone Douglas Hines, accompanied by the composer, in Curtis Hall in Philadelphia on 6 April 1982. The performance constituted Hagen's first appearance as an accompanist on the east coast. Congedo was written at Yaddo, completed on 24 August 1998 and dedicated to the poet. Ample Make This Bed was written on 13 March 1989 in New York City's East Village, while Stanzas for Music which is dedicated to pianist composer Craig Urquhart, was completed on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on 5 December 1983. The Waking was composed, according to the composer, 'as a memorial to my colleague Norman Stumpf, who set the same words when we were students together in Philadelphia. It was composed between giving composition lessons at Bard College where, for a decade, I taught.' Both versions of the brief Walt Whitman poem To You were composed in Philadelphia in 1982. The first setting views the encounter from one participant's perspective, the second from the other's. The composer stipulates that they should be performed without a break. The cycle ends with a rueful setting of Lodge, completed in Philadelphia on 30 October 1981.