lines outward (words: elaine feinstein)

Surendran Reddy met the British poet, novelist and translator Elaine Feinstein through her son, Martin Feinstein, who was a fellow student of his at the Royal College of Music in the late 1970s. Reddy often visited the Feinsteins’ home in Cambridge and was an ardent admirer of Feinstein’s writing. He completed his setting of her poem, ‘Lines Outward’ for solo voice and piano on 3 April 1979. The poem had first appeared in her collection, The Magic Apple Tree (1971) and was reprinted in Collected Poems and Translations (Carcanet, 2002). It is used here by kind permission of Ms Feinstein and her publisher, Carcanet. In addition to more than 100 compositions, Reddy wrote poems, essays, memoirs, and multi-art compilations, a large literary output among which is ‘a paean to elaine feinstein’, a humorous but very affectionate praise poem written in June 2008. It is added after the score, which is a facsimile of the original manuscript.