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About the Composer
Abbie Betinis
Graphite Publishing
The Prayer Wind (from The Clan of the Lichens)
Inspired by the mystery that surrounded the life of naturalist and writer Opal Whiteley.
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The Clan of the Lichens
soprano, piano
Inspired by the mystery that surrounded the life of naturalist and writer Opal Whiteley (1897-1992), composer Abbie Betinis has produced this five-movement song cycle which draws upon Betinis’s ready lyric gift, as well as her indebtedness to French impressionism. The Prayer Wind is the third movement of the cycle. Completed in November of 2004, single movements of this 12-minute song cycle have been performed in Paris, New York, California, and the entire cycle performed extensively around the Midwest.
Composer’s Notes
Opal Whiteley (1897-1992), child literary prodigy and acclaimed Oregon naturalist, was famous for her bestselling childhood diary (1920), but also wrote much poetry. This poem, extracted from her little-known collection The Flower of Stars, was written when Whiteley was in her early 20’s. Whiteley’s unique and consistent mythology permeates all of her writing, and this poem is no exception. She often returns to such themes as the universal journey of man, the substantive nature of time, the purity of the color blue, the instinctual understanding of children, the music of the solar system, and a host of metaphors from nature to illuminate personal relationships. After a tremendous scandal in which the true authorship of Whiteley’s celebrated journal was questioned, she became virtually unknown and died in 1992 in a London asylum.
Text
III. The Prayer Wind
There was quiet in the garden,
Save for the music
From the harp of stars,
When to its playing
Came the Prayer Wind
Wearing rose petal slippers
And twining for-get-me-nots
In her hair.
There was quiet in the garden
While the Prayer Wind
Dropped her for-get-me-nots
From twining in her hair.
They fell to earth
With the low sweet notes
From the harp of stars
They gently drifted down
And homes were gladder that day –
Nobody knew why, only
There were more blue-eyed children.
– Opal Whiteley (1897-1992)
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