The Saddest Noise
Original Instrumentation
Chorus, Timpani, Percussion, Harp, Strings
[Perc: SusCym, Vib, Chimes, Crot, Opt. Glock]
Alternate Arrangements
Choral Octavo
Duration
4:30
Text
Emily Dickinson
Premiere and Commission Info
First performed on February 25, 2023 at Stanford University, CA, with VOCES8, the VOCES8 Foundation Scholars, the Friction Quartet, and Keisuke Nakagoshi, with Christopher Tin conducting. Commissioned by Swagata “Ban” Banerjee, one-half of the duo Ban Brothers, in dedication to their late dad Sukumar Banerjee, an unsung musical genius.
PROGRAM NOTES
The Saddest Noise" is a setting of Emily Dickinson's poem "The Saddest Noise, the Sweetest Noise". It begins the story of The Lost Birds in spring: the season of birth and renewal, and a time of year when bird songs flood the skies. But what is ordinarily a joyous sound is now riddled with sorrow, as the songs of the remaining birds remind us of the ones we've already lost.
Dickinson's reflections on the birds' songs--at once tuneful, but tainted with melancholy--inspired my musical language for The Lost Birds. Heavily influenced by the vernacular of the 19th-century, the work is both pastoral and romantic, with lyrical melodies and soaring strings. But for all its romanticism and loveliness, there remains a sense of loss that permeates the music: for though the melodies we can still hear are sweet, it is the ones that are lost which we truly wish to hear.
AVAILABLE EDITIONS
