As I walked out one evening
2018. 6 min.
instrumentation: SSATB
music: Fran Daniel Laucerica
text: W.H. Auden
written for: Nightingale Vocal Ensemble
premiered: May 10, 2019. St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. Cambridge, MA
program note: Auden’s poem deals with the dichotomy between what is eternal and what is temporary. As there are three distinct voices in this poem — the narrator, the lover, and the clocks, the music represents characteristics of all three. The narrator stands alone, an observer, while the lover’s lavish words resound and reverberate in the hollowness of the archway, twisting and turning over themselves. However, when the message of temporality is introduced by the clocks, all time ceases and a sense of emptiness is infused into the vocalism, with periods of silence that seem to grow longer and longer. This also serves to juxtapose the lover’s image of endlessness, reflected in the flourishes of the imitated figure, with contextually disruptive cadences. This piece is meant to depict our inherent longing for eternity, whether that be through love, art, or salvation, while maintaining the truth that we are finite, as is all that we bring with us.
2018. 6 min.
instrumentation: SSATB
music: Fran Daniel Laucerica
text: W.H. Auden
written for: Nightingale Vocal Ensemble
premiered: May 10, 2019. St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. Cambridge, MA
program note: Auden’s poem deals with the dichotomy between what is eternal and what is temporary. As there are three distinct voices in this poem — the narrator, the lover, and the clocks, the music represents characteristics of all three. The narrator stands alone, an observer, while the lover’s lavish words resound and reverberate in the hollowness of the archway, twisting and turning over themselves. However, when the message of temporality is introduced by the clocks, all time ceases and a sense of emptiness is infused into the vocalism, with periods of silence that seem to grow longer and longer. This also serves to juxtapose the lover’s image of endlessness, reflected in the flourishes of the imitated figure, with contextually disruptive cadences. This piece is meant to depict our inherent longing for eternity, whether that be through love, art, or salvation, while maintaining the truth that we are finite, as is all that we bring with us.
2018. 6 min.
instrumentation: SSATB
music: Fran Daniel Laucerica
text: W.H. Auden
written for: Nightingale Vocal Ensemble
premiered: May 10, 2019. St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. Cambridge, MA
program note: Auden’s poem deals with the dichotomy between what is eternal and what is temporary. As there are three distinct voices in this poem — the narrator, the lover, and the clocks, the music represents characteristics of all three. The narrator stands alone, an observer, while the lover’s lavish words resound and reverberate in the hollowness of the archway, twisting and turning over themselves. However, when the message of temporality is introduced by the clocks, all time ceases and a sense of emptiness is infused into the vocalism, with periods of silence that seem to grow longer and longer. This also serves to juxtapose the lover’s image of endlessness, reflected in the flourishes of the imitated figure, with contextually disruptive cadences. This piece is meant to depict our inherent longing for eternity, whether that be through love, art, or salvation, while maintaining the truth that we are finite, as is all that we bring with us.