Solitude
Work Note:
A piece about loneliness despite company. Based on the poem Solitude by Lord Byron.
I: Nature’s Charm
Solitude | To sit on the rocks, to muse over flood and fell, To slowly trace the forest’s shady scene, Where things that own not man’s dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath never or rarely been; | Solitude | To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, With the wild flock that never need a fold; Alone over steeps and foaming falls to lean; This is not solitude, ’tis but to hold Converse with Natures charms, and view her stores unrolled.
II: Midst the Crowd
Solitude | But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel and to possess, And roam alone, the world’s tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless; | Solitude | Minions of splendour shrinking from distress! None that, with kindred consciousness endued, If we were not, would seem to smile the less Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued; This is to be alone; this, this is solitude! | This is to be alone; this is solitude.
Premiered by Sankt Petri Ungdomskör, Conducted by Karin Oldgren, Solo by Sofia Isgar | Choir Contemporary | Lund’s Allhelgonakyrka | 10 Feburary 2024
ca 8’ | 2024
SATB a cappella
Sheet music published via Gehrmans
