Saints Alive!

During the 1940s, our struggled with being a pacifist during World War II, so he turned his music to religious subjects. This piece, composed in 1942, interspersed three poems, each followed by an invocation to Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music. Both poet and composer were both residents of a house in New York that became famous as a center of artistic life. The poet then moved on to teaching English, and our composer returned to his home country.