Winging Wildly

1. Birds at Dusk (Teasdale) original title: “Dusk in June”
2. The Caged Bird (Dunbar) original title: “Sympathy"
3. Everyone Sang (Sassoon)

Composer's Note

The first piece portrays birds at dusk. It contrasts the beauty of evening with the darkness of the coming night — death. (Sara Teasdale took her own life.) From a compositional point of view, it is like a prelude to the other two pieces; musical motifs which will be developed later are introduced. 

The three pieces are so closely interconnected by both poetic and musical ideas that I have asked the publisher not to publish them separately, but only as an indivisible unit. "The Caged Bird" poem was such a challenge that it frightened me. It is quite a long poem and the diction is somewhat old-fashioned; I wasn't quite sure I could bring it off musically. The strophic form helped, but mostly I was helped by the great power of the poem. I was moved to tears as I worked on it. Perhaps I felt it even more than usual because of all my extensive reading about American slavery when writing my opera about John Brown and Frederick Douglass. 

The last poem, on the other hand, has a kind of extravagance of ecstasy — joy beyond words. This explains why the chorus sings only syllables sometimes. Near the end of the poem is the line "and the song was wordless."

Press

“…wonderful…joyous…lyrical…expressive. Highly recommended for advanced ensembles.”
— Choral Journal