"This is an unabashed collection of miniatures, all lyrical, all effortlessly played. Stier has a tone as smooth as white chocolate. This disc is entirely successful."
Fanfare -- The Magazine for Serious Record Collectors March/April 1995

"Well chosen and delightfully played by Charles Stier and Molly Newton. This music sounds the way Belgian chocolate tastes."
The Washington Post November 1994

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Day is Done

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And tonight I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start:

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

• American Simple Gifts (Shaker Tune)
• Barat Pièce in G minor
• Brahms Cradle Song
• Britten
  The Ash Grove
  Trees They Grow So High
• Debussy Petite Pièce
• Dvorák Romantic Piece
• Fauré Romance sans paroles
• Foster
  Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair
  Beautiful Dreamer
• Gluck Melody
• Goeyens Berceuse
• Handel
  Allegro
  Siciliana and Presto
• Haydn Menuet
• MacDowell To A Wild Rose
• Mendelssohn Andante
• Mozart Andante
• Saint-Säens The Swan
• Schubert Ave Maria
• Schumann Träumerei
• Shostakovich Lyrical Waltz
• Tartini Grave
• Tchaiskovsky
  Old French Song
  Sweet Reveries
  The Organ Grinder
• Vaughan Williams from Studies in English Folk-Song
• Wanhal Adagio cantabile