Continuing the vein of song writing in the song cycles, op. 24-27, the original plan for a long-mooted setting of Stevens' virtuoso display of linguistic jouissance gave each of its four soloists a virtual cantata-within-a-cantata of their own between each of the main poem's five cantos.  This unreal scheme, quite unworkable, was gradually whittled down and eventually dropped entirely. 

Even when confined to Stevens alone, the soloists have plentiful chance to develop variegated characters as they interweave amongst themselves, the chamber chorus, and the chamber ensemble, in what I hope is an orgy of hedonistic / decorative rapture:  Sea Surface Full of Fun.