Evening

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First Performance

December 2021

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Ensemble

Voice and Piano

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Duration

2.5 minutes

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Program Notes

Written for Syracuse University’s Contemporary Music Ensemble, Breeze is one of seven composers to set H.D.’s Evening for chamber ensemble.

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This poem takes place at the end of the day towards the end of the season when the writer is watching all of the beauty of the summer flowers fade away into the darkness. The first half of the poem focuses on the light, fading, moving, or causing the flowers to open or close, while the second half follows the shadows as they move across the field. This shift from light to shadow can be heard in the piano texture, as it changes from a flighty light theme to a dark, plodding, shadow theme. 

Jaclyn Breeze, 2021

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Evening by H.D.

The light passes

from ridge to ridge, 

from flower to flower - 

the hepaticas, wide-spread

under the light

grow faint - 

the petals reach inward, 

the blue tips bend

toward the bluer heart

and the flowers are lost. 

 

The cornel-buds are still white, 

but shadows dart

from the cornel-roots - 

black creeps from root to root

each leaf

cuts another leaf on the grass, 

shadow seeks shadow, 

then both leaf

and leaf-shadow are lost.