Program Note |
When Hilary and I spoke in the fall about ideas for her Competition piece, we talked about a number of possible avenues to take — some were pandemic-related, some weren’t, and I ended our call eager to see what she would find the most inspiration from. A few weeks later, she sent me a text by Leonora Speyer (1872–1956), who was one of the first women to win a Pulitzer Prize in poetry. The poem is called “Gold-fish”, and depicts a snapshot in time of someone stargazing at night. A shooting star “dies in the hot summer night…falling, fading”, which draws focus to the other stars, “immortally indifferent”.
Stars like goldfish uses register and polyrhythms to create a sense of the night sky rotating around a single point, the speaker marveling at the stars. Her use of eighth note triplets is particularly effective on the words “round and round”. Portamenti (or vocal slides) are used throughout the piece to create a sense of the “immortal indifference” noted at the end of the poem, as well as the “falling, fading” shooting star, while octave jumps in the right hand of the piano imitate the twinkling of stars. The ending blossoms into a glorious sequence of rising seventh chords on the words “eternally golden” before fading back into a cool indifference. — by Alex Canovas, May 2023 |
Premiere
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Commissioned by the Young New Yorkers' Chorus; premiered in May 2023.
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Recording |
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