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Joshua Shank
Joshua Shank (B&F Music)
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
A simple, yet moving, setting of Robert Frost’s legendary poem.
SATB, piano
Robert Frost’s legendary poem gets a sensitive but extremely melodic setting by Joshua Shank in which the final lines “disappear into the snow.”
Composer’s Notes
I don’t have much to say about what attracted me to this legendary poem except that, as someone who grew up in the Midwest, I understand completely how transfixing witnessing a quiet snowfall can be. It can make you forget things you need to momentarily forget and remind you of the beauty of the natural world. I also love how ambiguous Frost treats the final stanza—we don’t know what those promises are or where there those miles will take the speaker of the text—and how he allows us to fill in those things from experiences in our own lives.
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” was commissioned by the Hopkins High School Concert Choir during the time it was conducted by Philip Brown but premiered by its subsequent director, Katie Irvin. It is dedicated with love and gratitude to the former and received its premiere on December 17, 2019.
– Joshua Shank
Text
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
– Robert Frost (1874-1963)
$1.60 per licensed PDF
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