Proud Music of the Storm

Описание: Composed by Laura Sheils, 2024.
Commissioned by Sing Ireland for the Irish Youth Choir
*World Premiere, 13 July 2024 by the Irish Youth Choir, conducted by Artistic Director, Bernie Sherlock.

Composer’s Note:

Proud Music of the Storm is a celebration of music and the sounds that make up our world. The natural world is a uniting factor between all humans, bursting with sounds with which we are all familiar. I have liberally adapted a series of lines from Whitman’s larger poem, which focuses on the power and beauty of the natural world and music, as well as the freedom of the human spirit. Ultimately, the setting is an ode to the enduring power of music and its ability to bring all people together.

Lyrics:

Proud Music of the Storm
Proud music of the storm!
Blending, with Nature’s rhythmus,
All the tongues of nations;
Why have you seiz’d me?
Ah, from a little child,
Thou knows, Soul, how to me all
Sounds became music;
The measureless sweet vocalists of ages,
And for their solvent setting,
Earth’s own diapason,
Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves;
Sounding around me,
I hear the dance music of all nations,
The players playing,
For thee, they sing and dance, O Soul,
Give me to hold all sounds,
Fill me with all the voices of the universe,
The tempests, waters, winds – operas and chants –
Marches and dances,
Go forth,
Proud music of the storm!

Extracts from Proud Music of the Storm, Walt Whitman (1819–1892)