Leaves for Piano, Orchestra and Narrator is a 27-minute piece in five movements, presented here in its entirety (it may take a long time to load, be patient...). It was composed for the 50th Anniversary of Palomar College and premiered by Peter Gach, piano, and the Palomar College Orchestra, Robert Gilson, conductor, with David Connor, narrator. The piece was inspired by a poem written by a dear friend of mine, David Roberts, who died tragically. David loved the lake country of the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York and this is reflected in the poem. The composition is in five movements played without pause; the poem is read in its entirety in the first movement and the last section of the poem again in the fifth movement. The complete poem and notes about the piece are below. The performance recording is from a concert by the Palomar College Orchestra. I know the work was quite a challenge for this talented community orchestra and I am indebted to them for all their efforts. I’m especially thankful to Bob Gilson, Peter Gach and David Connor for their talent and professionalism.
From above,
in a dark canoe,
you will see
me drift
into the deep
like the ancient dust
of a star exploded
and sifting back
into the universe.
It starts out fairly quietly and builds to a dense climax with multiple overlapping melodies resolving into a unison for the full orchestra. A final tympani passage begins quietly then ushers in the third movement with a drum roll crescendo.
“Listen: how the night throbs!
The herons go hungry,
the blighted hemlock falls,
and the beaver sickens and drowns in the mire.
You who moved to the cities
and forgot this place,
will soon be taken in,
and pulled down to the bottom,
sweet and soft,
like rotting cedar.”
This is why my veins stung
when I saw the virgin pines.
This is why I moved
at the sob of a white-throated sparrow.
I returned,
year upon year,
to catch our faces
remembering who we were
as we peered over the gunnel
into the lake’s wide mirror.
A brief crescendo returns to the anger of the third movement and leads into the final movement.
-William Bradbury
With the Leaves of Yellow Birch
For George
With the leaves of yellow birch,
mix my ashes
and scatter me across
the bluest water
north.
From above,
in a dark canoe,
you will see
me drift
into the deep
like the ancient dust
of a star exploded
and sifting back
into the universe.
Scatter me on Stillwater
where, to tell the truth,
the New England coyote
woke me:
“My dung feeds the black spruce
and the cardinal flower.
In death, my carcass will host maggots
and sweeten the lavender pickerel weed
and make the crow’s eye shine all the blacker.”
“Listen: how the night throbs!
The herons go hungry,
the blighted hemlock falls,
and the beaver sickens and drowns in the mire.
You who moved to the cities
and forgot this place,
will soon be taken in,
and pulled down to the bottom,
sweet and soft,
like rotting cedar.”
This is why my veins stung
when I saw the virgin pines.
This is why I moved
at the sob of a white-throated sparrow.
I returned,
year upon year,
to catch our faces
remembering who we were
as we peered over the gunnel
into the lake’s wide mirror.
My, love,
I must tell you,
if you alone,
what I heard one night
camped on a sandy island:
“You will feel my touch as the balsam brushes across your lovely face.
You will taste my breath
as the late morning wind
stacks the water like hills of diamonds.
Even frail and blurred by age
you will see,
if you return,
treasure
sparkling
beneath
the lake’s wide mirror.”
-David Henry Roberts III
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