Virginia Woolf friends, they formed the artistic and literary Bloomsbury Group. In 1912, Woolf married Leonard Woolf and in 1917 they founded the Hogarth Press, which published much of her work. The couple rented second homes in Sussex and moved there permanently in 1940. Throughout her life, Woolf was troubled by bouts of mental illness, which included being institutionalised and attempting suicide. Her illness is considered to have been bipolar disorder, for which there was no effective intervention at the time. Eventually in 1941 she committed suicide by putting rocks in her pockets and drowning herself in a river, at the age
From the Diary of Virginia Woolf cycles "Letters from Composers", "The Andrée Expedition", and "Casa Guidi". In each case, he captures the cadence and flow of these more free-form writings without sacrificing musical structure or melodic interest. The composer's original intention was to use excerpts from Woolf's novel "The Waves" as the basis for his cycle. But in reading her newly published diaries he discovered a source much richer in musical and expressive possibilities. The highly confessional diary texts illuminate Woolf's inner world in a more immediate way than do her literary works. Assertion Assertion Score available from http://www.boosey.com/shop/prod/Dominick-Argento-From-The-Diary-of-Virginia-Woolf-voice-piano-Medium-Voice-Piano/600978 From the Diary of Virginia Woolf From