Ode: Intimations of Immortality

Verse

Staging

Piano/Vocal
Score

MP3

Orchestration

Overture

The curtain remains closed. A high stool, visible as the audience arrives, is in front of the curtain, SR. A soft spotlight highlights it.

TBD

N/A

I.

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore;

Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The curtain remains closed. The Philosopher (tenor solo) enters from SR wing followed by spotlight. He sits comfortably on the high stool. The spot covers Philosopher and the stool.

At the verse’s end, Philosopher exits, taking the stool with him.

Verse 1

Verse 1 Live in Boulder 2002

Verse 1 orchestration PDF

Verse 1 orchestration MP4

Verse 1 orchestration SIB

II.

The Rainbow come and goes,

And lovely is the Rose,

The Moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare,

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where'er I go.

That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

The curtain opens during the beginning of the music, disclosing a beautiful park just moments before dawn. SR is a large tree, perhaps just the trunk; after all it is a LARGE tree! Perhaps an oak. A white wrought iron bench is near and DS to the tree. Statuary and fountains may be present. SL is a maypole, primed and awaiting the arrival of yelling, laughing children to transform it. The center stage is a continuation of an open field of the park and resolves as rolling hills off in the distance. Flowers abound everywhere.

This verse is a set and lighting designer's dream (or nightmare, depending). The effect is that of the park going through a full day during the time of this verse. (The climax of the day is indicated by a large * in the score.) After the day "ends," the lights suddenly come on full on the last chord. At the same time, children instantly make their presence known on stage: heads appear peeking around bushes, the wing flies, etc. This is in anticipation of Verse III.

The Father (baritone solo) is on the bench as the curtain opens. At first, he may migrate around the park, but eventually makes his way downstage. At the end, he slowly exits SR, but fast enough so that he has no sensibility of the sudden presence of the children.

Please note the attempt in the score to follow the brightness of the lighting with the brightness of the chorus’ oohs and ahhs.

Verse 2

Verse 2 live in Boulder 2002

Verse 2 piano/vocal with score

Verse 2 piano accomp.

III.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,

And while the young lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief:

A timely utterance gave that thought relief,

And I again am strong:

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;

No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;

I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,

The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,

And all the earth is gay;

Land and sea

Give themselves up to jollity,

And with the heart of May

Doth every Beast keep holiday;-

Thou Child of Joy,

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-Boy!

The Children, laughing and yelling, rush to and begin the maypole dance.

The Children get wilder; start bumping into each other, falling, etc.

The Children collapse in exhaustion, until one (the Boy we follow through the work) collapses on each of the three final beats against some of his friends.

Verse 3

Verse 3 Live in Boulder 2002

IV.

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call

Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;

My heart is at your festival,

My head hath its coronal,

The fullness of your bliss, I feel- I feel it all.

Oh evil day! if I were sullen

While Earth herself is adorning,

This sweet May-morning,

And the Children are culling

On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,

Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,

And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm:-

I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

-But there's a Tree, of many, one,

A single Field which I have looked upon,

Both of them speak of something that is gone:

The Pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

The children resume their play, but silently and in slow motion (very surrealistic).

The Father enters from SR and observes the action before singing.

The Children begin to lose interest in the dance and their surroundings.

All Children except Boy sadly gradually exit L and R.

Boy holds and observes a flower, drops it, then sits down despondently.

Verse 4

(Typo:
MM=76 should be a half note, not a quarter note!)

Verse 4 Live in Boulder 2002

V.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy,

But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,

He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.

Boy is surrounded by the Shades of Light, and feels less despondent.

[Shades of Light and Darkness are one and the same; symbolically representing both in all of us. They change from one to the other via costumes.]

The Shades of Darkness briefly appear "around corners" unseen to Boy, but are quickly brushed aside by the Shades of Light. The sun gains intensity to the point it has rays and a smiley face; the sun's intensity reaches its maximum on the word "Youth," then gradually fades to its usual self by the last word of this verse.

Verse 5

Verse 5 Live in Boulder 2002

VI.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;

Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,

And, even with something of a Mother's mind,

And no unworthy aim,

The homely Nurse doth all she can

To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,

Forget the glories he hath known,

And that imperial palace whence he came.

Mother Earth (soprano) sings a beautiful solo and Valse to introduce the Boy’s distraction from play.

Boy is "distracted" from his mood by the appearance of a Girl his age. They transform from children to teens as they dance, then again transform, this time into adults. As the Shades of Light dance around them, the adults gradually overcome their mutual shyness and find themselves holding hands and looking at each other. At this point they again transform back to Boy and Girl.

Verse 6 vocal score

Verse 6 Orchestra score, Conducting score, and instrument parts

Verses 6, 7 and 8 Live in Boulder 2002
(The Valse was not recorded)

Verse 6 orchestration MP4

Verse 6 SIB

Verse 6 accomp only MP4

AI-created voice version of Verse 6 MP4

VII.

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,

A six years' Darling of a pigmy size!

See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,

Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,

With light upon him from his father's eyes!

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,

Some fragment from his dream of human life,

Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;

A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral;

And this hath now his heart,

And unto this he frames his song:

Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife;

But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride

The little Actor cons another part;

Filling from time to time his "humorous stage"

With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,

That Life brings with her in her equipage;

As if his whole vocation

Were endless imitation.

The Boy and Girl’s bliss is interrupted by the sudden appearance of over-zealous family members. Boy and Girl are split up, and Boy plays the games dictated by the adults.

The adults gradually become remarkably stilted with the last two lines; it segues right into the next verse.

 Verse 7 vocal score

VIII.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie

Thy Soul's immensity;

Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep

Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,

That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,

Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,-

Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest,

Which we are toiling all our lives to find,

In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;

Thou, over whom thy Immortality

Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave,

A Presence which is not to be put by;

[To whom the grave

Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight

Of day or the warm light,

A place of thought were we in waiting lie;]

Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might

Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,

Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke

The years to bring the inevitable yoke,

Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?

Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,

And custom lie upon thee with a weight,

Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

The adults "become" the Shades of Darkness, and taunt Boy throughout the verse.

Boy becomes exhausted and confused. During the last line, a multimedia slide show flashes scenes of disaster and tragedy over the stage;  the boy cringes in fear.

 Verse 8 vocal score

IX.

O joy! that in our embers

Is something that doth live,

That nature yet remembers

What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed

Perpetual benediction: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest;

Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:-

Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise;

But for those obstinate questionings

Of sense and outward things,

Fallings from us, vanishings;

Blank misgivings of a Creature

Moving about in worlds not realised,

High instincts before which our mortal Nature

Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised:

But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections,

Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,

Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make

Our noisy years seem moments in the being

Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,

To perish never:

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,

Nor Man nor Boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence in a season of calm weather

Though inland far we be,

Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea

Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the Children sport upon the shore,

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

A lone tenor voice (the Philosopher), soon joined by other voices and accompaniment, alerts Boy to the possibility that there is something left, after all.

It ends with a full ensemble expression of hope.

Verse 9 vocal score

(Tpt I)

(Tpt II)

(Fr. Hn.)

(Tbne)

(Tuba)

(Violin)

(Full brass)

Verse 9 Live in Boulder 2002

X.

Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

And let the young Lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,

Ye that pipe and ye that play,

Ye that through your hearts to-day

Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind;

In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be;

In the soothing thoughts that spring

Out of human suffering;

In the faith that looks through death,

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

The Mother (alto solo) enters with her entourage, and carries the high stool. Before she sings, she assists the Boy to sit upon it, as the Philosopher did.

Mother caresses Boy during her words, as a mother would comfort her child.

Verse 10 vocal score

Verse 10 Live in Boulder 2002

Verse

Staging

Sheet Music

MP3

Midi
Orchestration

XI.

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,

Forebode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;

I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,

Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day

Is lovely yet;

The Clouds that gather round the setting sun

Do take a sober colouring from an eye

That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;

Another race hath been, and other palms are won.

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

The ensemble gradually enters and warmly greets each other. The Boy and soloists join them.

 Children enter from the audience, and on their way to the stage, hand out flowers to audience members.

The last four lines are a joyous celebration of what we have gained in place of what we lost when we grew from childhood.

The last presto orchestral scramble leads up to the ensemble forming a heart on stage; on the penultimate chord, everyone holds a flower to the audience; on the last chord, those closest to the audience (downstage) kneel the deepest as those furthest from the audience (upstage) remain standing. This gives a raked appearance to the heart shape.

Verse 11 vocal score

(Tpt I)

(Tpt II)

(Fr. Hn.)

(Tbne)

(Tuba)

(Violin)

(Full brass)

Verse 11 Live in Boulder 2002