Category: Vocal Music / Art Song
Instrumentation: voice and guitar, or voice and piano
Duration: 6 minutes
Text / Source: Poems by William Blake and Chaim Stern
Publisher: Les Productions D'OZ (voice and guitar); Doberman-Yppan (voice and piano)

Songs:
A Cradle Song
What Death Can Touch

Two Songs of Reflection is a pair of songs for voice with guitar or piano, bringing together texts by William Blake and Chaim Stern. The set includes The Cradle Song and What Death Can Touch, two reflective works that move from lullaby and sacred imagery to grief, memory, and the loss of a loved one.

The songs differ in musical and expressive character. The Cradle Song is a lower-advanced work whose text begins as a mother’s lullaby to her baby and then turns toward the baby Jesus; Baxter mirrors this poetic shift through a binary form, with two verses in each section set to related music. What Death Can Touch is a lower-intermediate, through-composed song with recurring phrase shapes, offering a direct and deeply touching response to bereavement.

Two Songs of Reflection is well suited for vocal recitals, sacred or memorial programs, contemporary art song concerts, and voice-guitar or voice-piano collaborations. The availability of both guitar and piano versions makes the set flexible for performers, while its emotional directness calls for clear diction, sustained line, and sensitive ensemble balance.