Haiku Sketches

SATB

8 minutes

Text: Busi, Issa, Siera, Shiki

First performed by the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus,

New York City, on June 13th, 2009.

Programme note:

When asked to write a choral piece that ‘captures a glimpse of nature’, I chose to set a group of Haiku. I always enjoy the economy and precision of these poems, their color and drama and also their stillness. This combination is perfect for a musical setting. It gives ample opportunity for text coloring and also allows space for the music to surface and breathe.

I began setting numerous poems in late December 2008. Out of many sketches, a short harmonic phrase crystallized and formed into ‘yellow rose’. The movement was composed by repeating the phrase and subjecting it to transformations such as stretching, thinning and revoicing. Revoicing the phrase, perhaps the simplest transformation, often resulted in the most striking results.

After deciding to use the ‘yellow rose’ haiku, I tried focusing on the main theme – a flower hidden in deep grass – but other images drew away my attention (as they probably would in real life). I was inspired by the images of snorting cattle, rearing their horns (depicted by straining tenors and bases) – very terrible and dramatic! Juxtaposing this was the microscopic world of an ant. (The words ‘an ant’ appeal to me, they seem to be the very epitome of precision.) Under an enormous sky, the ant climbs onto an ink stone. On the stone, the trio of ‘anty’ soloists are briefly shadowed the passing clouds of the chorus.

Behind all this activity, the small yellow rose is hidden.

At the end of the movement the wind ripples the grass and we glimpse the rose. Now, the alto solo becomes clearer, drawing out of the texture of the chorus, and the undulating harmonic phrase appears to settle around A flat. But it is all so brief, the hint of yellow buried so deep in the green, the A flat harmony so ambiguously major and minor, we are not sure what to believe.

In following the form of a Haiku, I wrote two short movements that frame the longer central piece. Both movements are fragment-like and both develop words from the Haiku rather than set the entire poem. Both use soloists shadowed by his or her choral section -the tenor depicts the autumn wind in the first, and the soprano describes the flight of a bat in the third. (Listening to the soprano fluttering around her section is like trying to follow the impossibly fast movements of a bat with the naked eye.)

The remaining chorus drives the movements forward with their relentless ostinati – the quivering mountains of the first movement are perhaps natures opposite to the darting flight paths of moonlit bats in the third.

Sound sample - the third movement - performed by the Young New Yorker’s Chorus, June 2009

The Young New Yorkers’ Chorus

Sound sample - from the second movement - performed by the Young New Yorker’s Chorus, June 2009