Sides of Paradise
for flute, clarinet/bass clarinet, soprano voice, percussion, and violin
Performed by TAK Ensemble
July 7, 2023, Dublin, NH (The Walden School’s Faculty Commissioning Concert)
Personage
“Here, earth-born”
Young Irony
“Summer Storm”
but that is all
Text: excerpts from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Here, earth-born”
That was the day… and the night for another story,
Pale as a dream and shadowed with penciled trees—
Ghosts of the stars came by who had sought for glory,
Whispered to us of peace in the plaintive breeze,
Whispered of old dead faiths that the day had shattered,
Youth the penny that bought delight of the moon;
That was the urge that we knew and the language that mattered
That was the debt that we paid to the usurer June.
…
Youth the penny that bought delight of the moon.
“Summer Storm”
Faint winds, and a song fading, and leaves falling,
Faint winds, and far away a fading laughter…
And the rain and over the fields a voice calling…
…
But I wait…
Wait for the mists and for the blacker rain—
Heavier winds that stir the veil of fate,
Happier winds that pile her hair;
Again
They tear me, teach me, strew the heavy air
Upon me, winds that I know, and storm.
There was a summer every rain was rare;
There was a season every wind was warm…
This piece reflects on the contextual expectations of chamber music and art song, as well as linear versus cyclical development. I read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise earlier in 2023, and I was surprised at how much still resonated over 100 years later: a 23-year-old in a liminal stage of life after having had education disrupted by a catastrophic world event. Movements 2 and 4 set excerpts of poetry from two different characters in the book in dialogue with each other.
Special thanks to TAK Ensemble and the Walden School’s Faculty Commissioning program.