Emily’s Words

Emily Dickinson wrote poems about many topics, including words. This chamber piece includes four of Dickinson’s short poems about words. Themes include the inadequacy of words to encapsulate an abstract concept such as beauty, which needs to be perceived by the senses rather than described by words; the importance and heaviness of words; the beauty of unspoken words; and the life of words, which, for the poet, begins when they are spoken—or sung. The singing Emily of this piece delivers her words in four ways: singing, speaking in rhythm on approximate pitches (Sprechgesang), speaking in rhythm without specific pitches, and speaking without specified pitches or rhythm. The music of the first section is playful, with the instruments tossing around various motives. The flute introduces the main melody of the second section, followed by the same melody in canon at a minor ninth between the clarinet and cello, and then another canon between the flute and clarinet. The lyrical third section includes many cross-rhythms, ending with exuberant 16th-note runs in the four instruments, leading to a couple of static bars with trills, which serve as a backdrop for the recitation of the fourth poem. That same poem is then sung with a return of the playful music from section one. -Timothy Hoekman