Media : Listen

Dennis Tobenski, tenor
Marc Peloquin, piano

Lyrics by William Zinsser

This works appears on And He’ll Be Mine: Love Songs by Gay American Composers, Perfect Enemy Records PER-1 (New York, 2016), with the complete Modern Love Songs cycle and works by David Del Tredici, Zachary Wadsworth, Darien Scott Shulman, and Dennis Tobenski.

AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT

Verse:

As the poet said:
How do I love you?
Let me count the ways.
But I’d like to rephrase
        the question and start again.
Not how do I love you,
But when?

Chorus:

At any given moment
Of any given hour
Of any given day
You are somewhere in my mind.

At any given drop of sand in the hourglass,
At any given tick of the clock,
At any given shift in the sun’s position
I get that shock
Of recognition.
It’s you again!
Come to remind me
Of all our times together since we met
Not that I could ever forget.

At every given moment
Of every given hour
Of every given season
Of the year
You appear.

Modern Love Songs (1997-2002) evolved from the collaboration between composer Chester Biscardi and writer William Zinsser that reflects their shared passion for the American Songbook; the cycle that results sits somewhere between cabaret/standard tunes and art songs. As the title suggests, these songs look at the myriad possibilities found in modern romance: coincidence, self-examination, astonishment, luck, and loss. “What a Coincidence” (1997) is about being lucky in love; “I Wouldn’t Know About That” (1997) is about needing love; “Someone New” (1999) is about finding love, about love being transformative; “Now You See It, Now You Don’t” (1998) is about losing love; and “At Any Given Moment” (2002) is about the quantity and quality of love, about love being thankful/prayerful.