Colin Eatock’s Ashes of Soldiers (2010) is dedicated to the composer’s father, Alan James Eatock, who was a soldier. The piece is in two movements: the first is for clarinet and piano; in the second, a soprano is added to the instrumental duo. Thematically, the two movements – which are performed without pause – are closely related. The second movement a continuation and development of the musical ideas introduced in the first. The text is based on a poem of the same title by Walt Whitman, from his Leaves of Grass. Despite the poem’s specific setting in Civil War era USA, its theme is universal: the commemoration of all soldiers who have died in battle, regardless of their allegiances.
lyrics
Noiseless as mists and vapors,
From their graves in the trenches ascending,
From the cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee,
From every point of the compass out of the countless, unnamed graves,
In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or squads of twos or threes or
single ones they come,
And silently gather round me.
Phantoms of countless lost,
Invisible to the rest henceforth become my companions,
Follow me ever—desert me not while I live.
Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living—sweet are the musical voices sounding,
But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead with their silent eyes.
Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone,
But love is not over—and what love, O comrades!
Perfume from battle-fields rising, up from the foetor arising.
Perfume all—make all wholesome,
Make these ashes to nourish and blossom,
O love!
Give me exhaustless, make me a fountain,
That I exhale love from me wherever I go like a moist perennial dew,
For the ashes of all dead soldiers…
credits
from Memories of Places Past,
released February 7, 2019
Poetry by Walt Whitman
Composed by Colin Eatock
Trio dell’Aria is an ensemble comprised of Kripa Nageshwar (soprano), Michael Westwood (clarinetist) and Ruta Vaivade
(pianist). It formed naturally through the performers’ love of chamber music works and experimenting with different timbers. Since 2015, they have embarked on exploring music from Baroque to jazz to folksong, championing Canadian content and newly commissioned works....more
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