Earth My Song

Text: the composer’s father, Kirke Field Mechem

1. I Could Hear the Least Bird Sing
2. Isle of the Dead
3. Rebirth (original title: “End of Summer”)

Composer's Note

Only the second piece requires any comment.

In the spring of 1880 the Swiss painter, Arnold Böcklin, painted “The Isle of the Dead,” a desolate shell of cliff surrounded by waters still and dark. His contemporaries recognized the painting as one of the supreme icons of the age. Since then, one generation after another has fallen under its spell. Musicians, too, have proved susceptible. Rachmaninoff composed an expansive tone poem of the same name in 1909.

My father’s poem, “Isle of the Dead,” was inspired by this painting, and also by Rachmaninoff’s composition. But the poem is not about death itself, I think, rather it uses death as a metaphor for the deep depression that sometimes comes upon our souls, usually at night, and kills our most precious gift — the ability to love. The poem is a nightmare of alienation, estrangement from those who are dearest to us — a living death. I know that my father experienced such darkness sometimes, as did Rachmaninoff.

I wish I had asked my father about “Isle of the Dead” while he was alive. It has always fascinated me, but frightened me too. Perhaps this explains why I did not ask him, and why it has taken me so long to feel that I understood the poem well enough to compose music for it. Other interpretations are possible, of course, but this is the one that feels right to me, and brought forth the most desolate music I have ever written.