FOUR TRANQUIL POEMS For Mens Chorus, After D H Lawrence
Harold Blumenfeld
About this work:
The FOUR TRANQUIL POEMS, for mens chorus a capella, is one of composer's first works, and one of which he approves.... It is setting of four poems of D H Lawrence: "AWARE".. "GREEN" .. "A WHITE BLOSSOM".. and the most dramatic of the settings, "SILENCE"..Duration 7'.
Much of "Silence" available here in Sound Bite, performed by Washington Univ. Mens Chorus, Donn Wiess, conductor...
>Former Pub MMB Music, now closed...
Published by COMPOSER: blumenf@wustl.edu
Score (and choral part) $4.
This work, together with composer's "Three Scottish Poems" [also on this site] were composed under the spell of uncannily crafted masses and motets of early Renaissance, these studied and sung with Hindemith at Yale. In its early day, "Tranquil Poems" enjoyed numerous performances. It is now their time again - now especially, when substantial mens a capella musichas become a rarity....
"Silence", written in reflection on death of poet's mother, includes these lines---
"Since I lost you, I am silence haunted.
Whether the people in the street
like pattering ripples go by,
or whether the theatre sighs
with a loud, hoarse cry,
or the wind shakes a ravel of light
over the dead black river
and last night's echoings
make the daybreak shiver,
I hear the silence waiting
to sip them all up again,
in its last completeness,
drinking down the noise of men."
Version: 1993 Rev.
Year composed: 1955
Duration: 00:10:00
Ensemble type: Chorus, with or without Solo Voices:Chorus, Unaccompanied
Instrumentation: 4 T, 4 B, 4 BB
Instrumentation notes: Mens Chorus a capella. In score, vocal parts are compressed for piano. For 12 mens voices minimum.