A Last Look
Watch:
Listen:
Instrumentation:
soprano, violin, cello, piano, perc and electronics
Premiered:
Jenna Margiasso, Leslee Smucker, Cecelia Swanson, Alaina DeBellevue, Derek Frank
conducted by Egemen Kesikli
February 25th, 2015. Atlas Blackbox Theater, Boulder, CO.
About:
I was drawn to the nostalgic and understated tone of W.S. Merwin’s poem “A Last Look”. The simple but vivid natural imagery Merwin uses influenced the sound world of this piece which is full of bright, ringing colors and deep, lush electronics. For me, this pairing of text and music evokes memories of the past and the feeling of returning to a once familiar place.
------------------------------------------------------
Even the words are going somewhere urban
where they hope to find friends
waiting for them
some of the friends will think of trees as pleasant in a minor
way
much alike after all
to us
some of the friends will never be aware of a single tree
they will live in a world without a leaf
where the rain is misfortune
all the languages until now have flowed
from leaf to leaf
and have gone like faces
gone like the stone porches of small houses
and the smell of the forest
in the water of summer
- W. S. Merwin