Wistful Wind
F.152
Wistful Wind’s quick, rhythmic pattering of unaccompanied voices paints the scene for the listener: a chilly errant breeze in the hush before dawn. Just like the poet uses language to evoke imagery, the composer can use rhythm, melody, and harmony to support specific aspects of the text.
Perusal Score
Accepted into PROJECT : ENCORE, a curated collection of choral music (search “Fraley”).
Program Notes
Wistful Wind’s quick, rhythmic pattering of a cappella voices paints the scene for the listener: a chilly errant breeze in the hush before dawn. (Perhaps after the meterless, suspended sound-world of Golden Stars’ night?)
Just like the poet uses language to evoke imagery, the composer can use rhythm, melody, and harmony to support specific aspects of the text. In this case, quick, repeating rhythms and melodic phrases reinforce the character of this breeze: wistful, chilly, errant, contrasting with the more sustained tones of the “first carol of the lark”.
Wistful Wind is part of a cycle of choral pieces based on Adela Florence Nicolson’s poetry entitled India’s Love Lyrics, which includes Golden Stars (F. 150), Wistful Wind (F. 152), The Plains (F. 154), Lost Delight (F. 157), Famine Song (F. 164), and Reminiscence (F. 166).
Performance Notes
The “Shh” extended technique, soprano glissando, mixed meter (19 changes across four time signatures), and freely chromatic harmonic language place Wistful Wind at Level 3 (Intermediate). Comfortable ranges and repetitive patterns within each section keep the piece accessible despite its technical demands.
Video Score
The Text
Wistful Wind (as performed)
Just in the hush before dawn
A little wistful wind is born.
A little chilly errant breeze
Thrills the grasses, stirs the trees
As it wanders on its way.
While yet the night is cool and dark,
The first carol of the lark—
Its plaintive murmurs seem to say:
“I await the sorrows of the day.”
—Adela Florence Nicolson (1865–1904) published in India’s Love Lyrics (1902), edited by Christopher Lee Fraley
Original Poem
Verses: Faiz Ulla
Just in the hush before dawn
A little wistful wind is born.
A little chilly errant breeze,
That thrills the grasses, stirs the trees.
And, as it wanders on its way,
While yet the night is cool and dark,
The first carol of the lark,—
Its plaintive murmurs seem to say
“I wait the sorrows of the day.”
—Adela Florence Nicolson (1865–1904) published in India’s Love Lyrics (1902)