"Let us go, then, you and I," beckons the opening line of T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915). The journey that invitation spurs, guided by the titular J. Alfred Prufrock, winds through the sitting parlors and smog-filled streets of Edwardian London… and through the innermost thoughts and fears of Prufrock himself.
The poem is a study in contradictions. It is a heroic epic written about a deeply unheroic man—vain, self-loathing, and cautious to a fault—lamenting the impossibility of the epic in modern life. Banal and even grotesque turns of phrase sit side-by-side with heartachingly beautiful ones, woven together with allusions to Shakespeare and Dante. Above all, Prufrock obsesses over his senescence and the eventual approach of death—yet the poet (then writing under the name T. Stearns Eliot) wrote the bulk of the poem at the age of 22. Prufrock is a spectre of what Eliot himself fears he may become—a miserable, aging man whose life is measured and revised so carefully that he talks himself out of art, love, and happiness—dying as alone and forgotten as he was in life.
I hope that I have done this masterpiece justice.
This song cycle would not exist without the incredible talent and support of Jóhann Schram Reed. He is without a doubt one of the finest musicians I have ever worked with, and I am grateful to call him a mentor, a colleague, and a friend.
Recorded June 9, 2019 at the Center for New Music, San Francisco, CA
Jóhann Schram Reed, bass-baritone
Taylor Chan, piano