Although I had encountered the music of John Cage, Milton Babbitt, and Stefan Wolpe in my late teens, I didn’t know of Richard Swift until after I finished graduate school, and I didn’t listen to his music until the late 1970s. In the early 1990s, we became friends, and I got to know a good deal of his music, which shared some compositional principles with Babbitt’s and mine. I chose to include my article on Swift in this book not only because I’d like to introduce his music to those who have not yet encountered it, but because it documents a process of getting to know a serial piece. This complements my essay on Babbitt, which deals with serial thought from a compositional point of view.

Alas, Richard Swift died in 2003, leaving behind a wealth of beautiful music that deserves to be performed and studied much more that it has been. Dick preferred a scholarly life to one of artistic promotion, even though his musical gifts were clearly superior to those of most scholars or composers. If this essay will interest musicians and listeners in his music, I will be greatly gratified.

In late May of 1993, I received a package from Richard Swift including a letter, the score of his song cycle, Roses Only, and a tape of the premiere performance by Susan Narucki, soprano, and D. Kern Holoman conducting the UCD Symphony Orchestra. Swift and I had been corresponding, mainly by mail for about two years, occasionally exchanging tapes and scores. As with much of the beautiful music I received from him, his song cycle immediately engaged my interest and admiration. In addition, and for reasons I will register later, I happen to remember vividly my initial impressions of Roses Only and especially its last song. Over many rehearings and thoughts during a period of about three years, I learned a good deal about this piece, which has greatly enhanced my appreciation. For this reason alone I have decided to write up an account of the last song. But in sharing this Swift piece with the reader, I wanted my exposition not only to present an analysis or description of the work and what I found to hear in it but to recall the stages in my understanding and how I studied the piece to deepen my appreciation.