The impetus for this song cycle was a New York Times review of a recording of Schumann songs by Brigitte Fassbaender. Several of the songs she recorded had texts that implied that the singer is a man, and the reviewer devoted a large part of the article to a discussion of the double standard that allows women to sing songs intended for male singers, while tacitly disapproving of the reverse. Furthermore, while men and women can sing about each other, and women can sing about women, there are few works in which men sing about men. Of Passion's Tide is my contribution to this scant repertoire.

The poems were written in the 1910s and '20s by C. P. Cavafy. They are used here in Rae Dalven's English translation from the original Greek. I selected these particular poems from Cavafy's collected works because they fell nicely into an umbrella storyline of an older man reflecting on a past relationship from his youth. The first song, Desires, deals with the passage of time and the need to act on one's feelings while one has the chance. In the second song, The Next Table, the singer sees a young man at a café who reminds him of a past love. The next three songs chronicle that relationship from its rapturous beginning to its unfortunate, yet unavoidable, ending. In the final song, Return, the singer yearns to rediscover those sensations of his youth.