Songs of Reconciliation
Tran Nhan Tong, Walt Whitman
Death (Tran Nhan Tong)
The wild-raging storm sweeps the whole earth now,
Running adrift the drunken fisherman’s boat.
From all four quarters, clouds thicken and blacken,
Waves surge like the report of beaten drums,
Everything washing out by slashing rain, gust-driven,
Beneath the shuddering menace of this thunder.
Afterward, the dust settles, the sky grows calm,
And the moonlit river lengthens out. What time of night is this?
A Clear Midnight (Whitman)
This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the worldess,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best.
Night, sleep, and the stars.
Spring Evening (Tarn Nhan Tong)
I understand nothing, in my youth;
When spring came my mind wandered in flowers.
You already carry within you the family jewel, don’t look for it elsewhere.
I sit on my cushion, I sit on the meditation board,
And watch red petals fall.
Reconciliation (Whitman)
Word over all, beautiful as the sky!
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly
wash again, and ever again, this soil’d world:
. . . For my enemy is dead—a man divine as myself is dead;
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin—I draw near;
I bend down, and tough lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
Songs of Reconciliation, Op. 120, was commissioned by the Tran Nhan Tong Academy to celebrate the winners of the 2013 Tran Nhan Tong Reconciliation Prize. The work is written for soprano and orchestra and is based on poetry by Tran Nhan Tong and Walt Whitman.
More Orchestra or Large Ensemble Works
The Bell, a cantata, Opus 182 1
Symphony no. 4 op. 170 based on texts from the Psalms (KJV), Opus 170 2
Harmony in Blue and Silver for Wind Orchestra, Opus 153 3
Song of the Open Road, Opus 134 4
David and Old Ironsides, Opus 89 8
Holy Ghosts, No. 1 Chorale Prelude for Wind Ensemble, Opus 80 no. 1 9
Dark Orange Concerto; a concerto for viola and winds, Opus 77 10
The Triumph of Lightness, a concerto for cello and chamber orchestra, Opus 70 11
Songs of Innocence and Experience, Opus 55 14
Short Symphony for Band, Opus 47 15
The Sentimental Muse, a Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra, Opus 45 16
What Goes Around Comes Around, Opus 40A 18
Idumea Symphony (Symphony No. 2), Opus 40 19
The Idea of Order at Key West, Opus 13 22
Continuum for orchestra, Opus 3 23
Novelette Arranged for String Orchestra, Opus 1A (unperformed) 24