Black Shadows Fall

INSTRUMENTATION
tenor and cello

DURATION
4′ 00″

TEXT
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Written for the 2011 Seasons Festival.

PROGRAM NOTES
Black shadows fall… is a brief, emotional conversation between cello and tenor reflecting on shadowy realms and distant, warm vapors. The piece sets several stanzas from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “Birds of Passage”, a work reflecting on the hopes, aspirations, and agonies of a poet.

Both the cellist and tenor make use of non-standard techniques to express the introspective nature of the poetry, including bent pitches, extended glissandi fluttering between notes and quarter-tones that develop a truly “shadowy” consonance.