The setting of four poems by well-known and widely appreciated by many composers poetesses Emily Dickinson (movements I and II) and Sara Teasdale (movements III and IV) are elegiac (as they follow the four seasons from summer to spring), yet different in character.
Answer July (movement I) takes a reciting approach to the interpretation of Emily Dickinson's poem and most lyrical in character, featuring short solos.
If you were coming in the fall (II) is the most personal of all four poems set in this cycle and therefore more dissonant and rhythmically complex in nature, reflecting upon the inconsistent rhyme scheme of the poem, which alternates between iambic tetrameter and trimester.
With Fairy Snow (III), the compositional process was different from all other movements: first came the music, and then – text by Sara Teasdale, which coincided not only rhythmically with the piece, but with the character of the music, anticipating the spring’s spirit of self-sacrificial love.
Once I discovered for myself Sara Teasdale, I thought that her poetry was ideal for setting to music, and I continued this cycle with Fifth Avenue in April (IV), which sets her “May Day” from “Rivers to the Sea” (1915). This time the text came first, and naturally it meant to be performed after Fairy Snow, just as spring follows winter. In this final movement the music pays tribute to Barbershop style and is performed with a little bit of a "swing," depicting the atmosphere of New York of the 1920-1930s.

The setting of four poems by well-known and widely appreciated by many composers poetesses Emily Dickinson (movements I and II) and Sara Teasdale (movements III and IV) are elegiac (as they follow the