The Darkling Thrush

(text: Thomas Hardy) for SSAATTBB choir, 6’00” (2012). Also available for SATB choir from NoteNova Publishing.

Commissioned and recorded by San Francisco Choral Artists, Magen Solomon, Artistic Director, 12/9/12.

Thomas Hardy’s poem describes a joyous music from a bedraggled bird… What does it know that we don’t?  This setting presents the poem as is, then revisits the text from the point of view of the bird.  This latter half incorporates fragments of melody based on field recordings of the hermit thrush, the wood thrush, and the veery.