Shop for Music
About the Composer
Dale Trumbore
Dale Trumbore
Tritina for Patience
“A mind should be a forest, not a garden.”
-
Light Like Letters
-
Star Field
-
Part of Me Hurtling Toward
SSA Chorus and Piano
In Tritina for Patience, contemporary poet Erica Reid writes about embracing the complexity of our minds, sadness and all: “A mind should be a forest, not a garden.” We explore “gloom” with a lightness unexpected in poems about sadness or depression. Here, though, it is this very lightness that allows us to accept the complexity of our minds and move through our “gloom.” The music for this piece captures the nuance of the poem with jazz-like influences in the piano accompaniment and vocal lines.
Tritina for Patience can be performed alone or as part of a cycle dealing with mental health, Light Like Letters, alongside two additional movements: Star Field and Part of Me Hurtling Toward.
Composer’s Notes
I was so drawn to set Erica’s poem to music because I’ve also dealt with depression and sadness—what Erica calls “gloom.” There’s a lightness to how Erica’s poem refers to this “gloom,” in how she talks about braiding it into something beautiful (“diamonds of gloom, fishtails of gloom”) and how she mentions putting reins on it (like taming a wild horse) instead of trying to get rid of it altogether.
This piece was commissioned by the Wellington High School Valkyries (Bradford Chase, conductor).
-Dale Trumbore
Text
Once, I thought I’d leave this world too soon.
I’d not yet learned to put reins on my gloom
& let it canter through impeccable gardens.
A mind should be a forest, not a garden.
I once thought I would leave this world too soon
but now I braid the blue mane of my gloom
into diamonds of gloom, fishtails of gloom,
& clutch them as I trample through the gardens
that never suited me. I’m patient. Soon
impatiens will spring from my garden, bright as gloom. Oh, soon.
-Erica Reid
$2.65 per licensed PDF
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.