Category: Vocal Music / Art Song
Instrumentation: voice, piano
Text / Source: Words by Linda Pastan and Christina Rossetti
Performers: Written for soprano Annie Gill

Two Last Songs is a pair of art songs for voice and piano, written for soprano Annie Gill. The set brings together two poetic meditations on mortality: Linda Pastan’s 1932 and Christina Rossetti’s When I Am Dead, My Dearest, one of Rossetti’s best-known poems.

In 1932, Baxter responds to an intensely personal text that confronts the realism of reaching the age of 80, when death no longer feels distant or abstract. The song gives musical shape to that awareness with directness and emotional restraint, reflecting Baxter’s gift for lyrical vocal writing, tonal clarity, and contemporary harmonic color in the service of poetic meaning.

When I Am Dead, My Dearest offers a complementary perspective. Although Rossetti’s speaker claims indifference toward remembrance or mourning after death, the imagery of the poem suggests a deeper emotional contradiction beneath the surface. Baxter’s setting can be understood as part of his broader art song catalog, where clear text delivery, expressive melodic line, and sensitivity to poetic nuance are central.

Two Last Songs is well suited for vocal recitals and contemporary art song programs, especially those exploring memory, age, grief, mortality, and the interior life of poetry. The songs call for a singer able to communicate intimacy, restraint, and emotional complexity with clarity and directness.