Feeling pretty good thus far. John Quincy Adams and Louisa Catherine Adams would often write poems for each other, and my librettist (David C. Cole) decided to incorporate this aspect of them into Act I, to show the depth of feeling they had for one another. I set the dual poem (Dave’s original text – not many of these poems survive) last week, and also wrote the transition music to the next part of the scene. You can listen to that here, as performed by MIDI.

Here’s a little taste of the duet:

Up next – the music for the meeting between JQA and John Cleves Symmes, in which the Hollow Earth theory is explained. This segment would be mostly instrumental, with a few lines interjected here and there, while pages from Symmes’ notebook would be projected.

Back to work. Like a cheap set of drugstore nails, we press on.

WF