Falling from a Height Holding Hands: For Large Orchestra and Chorus

Abstract

Falling from a height holding hands sets poetry of Gary Snyder for mixed chorus (SATB) and orchestra. Its duration in performance is about seven minutes. The Boston University Symphony and Symphonic Chorus gave the premiere performance at Boston’s Symphony Hall on April 22, 2009. When I heard Gary Snyder read this poem on a podcast from the Poetry Foundation web site I was deeply moved. In his Danger On Peaks I found the text in print. In a few concentrated lines Snyder presents half a conversation, and reminds us of the sharp clarity of that moment that touched us all. Musical images crowd the mind, and I was quickly overwhelmed by a project I could not neither stop nor avoid. Once heard, this poem cannot be unheard, and the piece seized me. There are two forces here that cannot be resolved: one turbulent, confounded, uncertain, and the other calm, resolved, and clear. The latter is how the poem speaks, and at times it is almost serene. The final image, the falcon, is particularly so. Snyder frequently speaks of the “most archaic” values he holds as a poet, and as a naturalist, he knows the primordial first hand, and he allows us to draw from it as from a deep well.