Gale in April (2021)

for baritone, strings & baroque organ

Duration: 12'

Commission: for Douglas Williams by Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele and Equilibrium Young Artists Foundation

Premiere: July 1, 2021, Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele, Ludwigsburg, Germany; Douglas Williams, baritone & conductor; Gustavo Surgik, Anna Rockika, Ramin Trümpelmann, violins; Ana Helena Surgik, violoncello; Ralf Zeranski, double bass; Evelyn Laib, organ

Soloist: baritone (G2-F4)

Instrumentation: 3 violins, cello, double bass, baroque organ

Availability: For purchase

Text: by Robinson Jeffers

Gale in April

Intense and terrible beauty, how has our race with the frail naked nerves,
So little a craft swum down from its far launching?
Why now, only because the northwest blows and the headed grass billows,
Great seas jagging the west and on the granite
Blanching, the vessel is brimmed, this dancing play of the world is too 

      much passion.
A gale in April so overfilling the spirit,
Though his ribs were thick as the earth's, arches of mountain, how shall one 

      dare to live,
Though his blood were like the earth's rivers and his flesh iron,
How shall one dare to live? One is born strong, how do the weak endure it?
The strong lean upon death as on a rock,
After eighty years there is shelter and the naked nerves shall be covered 

     with deep quietness,
O beauty of things go on, go on, O torture
Of intense joy I have lasted out my time. I have thanked God and finished,
Roots of millennial trees fold me in the darkness,
Northwest wind shake their tops, not to the root, not to the root, I have 

    passed
From beauty to the other beauty, peace, the night splendor.