Thanatos: Four Poems About Death
Martin Halpern
About this work:
These settings, complements to my "Eros: Four Poems About Love," treat death from four different perspectives. In the first, the opening stanza of the hermit thrush's song from Walt Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed," the poet welcomes death as a longed-for deliverer. In the second, W.B. Yeats's "The Wheel," the poet muses on the perpetual dissatisfaction with temporal things which reflects the soul's deep "longing for the tomb." In the third, Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," the poet overcomes a momentary death-wish by reminding himself that he has "promises to keep." And in the fourth, John Donne's sonnet "Death Be Not Proud," the poet defies death by invoking a higher power, human immortality. The first poem is tonal, the second and third are modal (Phrygian and Lydian) and the fourth is in a post-tonal mode with some tonal references.
Version: Tenor Voice and Piano
Year composed: 1995
Duration: 00:12:00
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Solo Voice with Keyboard
Instrumentation: 1 Piano, 1 Tenor