mad magnificent herald (Spring)– Carol Barnett

Composer: Carol Barnett

Text by: E. E. Cummings

Instrumentation: SATB

Duration: 6'30"

Date Written:  1998

Composer’s note: Mad Magnificent Herald (Spring) was commissioned by Hobart and William Smith Colleges for its chamber vocal group, Cantori, directed by Dr. Robert Cowles. Since the work was to be premiered in the spring, I chose two of the stanzas of E. E. Cummings' longer poem, "Epithalamion," that glorify that season. The music has madrigal tendencies, chiefly in the way the voices imitate each other, and in its occasional use of word-painting. The opening phrase, sung at the octave by all voices and reappearing several times throughout the work, is an homage to one of my teachers, Dominick Argento, who I imagined could have written such a phrase. Several musical exuberances are inspired by the sheer untrammeled joy of the Cummings text: the hesitant "mm, mm, mm, mm" after "forgetfulness," the "trump" with its lengthy rolled "r," the prolonged "s" on "whispers" and "silence," and the word "primeval" degenerating into a wind-through-the-pines sound effect.

text

And still the mad magnificent herald Spring 
assembles beauty from forgetfulness 
with the wild trump of April: 

A silver sudden parody of snow 
tickles the air to golden tears, and hark! 
the flicker's laughing yet, while on the hills 
the pines deepen to whispers primeval and throw 
backward their foreheads to the barbarous bright 
sky, and suddenly from the valley thrills 
the unimaginable upward lark 
and drowns the earth and passes into light 

And still the mad magnificent herald Spring 
assembles beauty... 

O still miraculous May! O shining girl 
of time untarnished! O small intimate 
gently primeval hands, frivolous feet 
divine! O singular and breathless pearl! 
O indefinable frail ultimate pose! 
O visible beatitude sweet sweet 
intolerable! silence immaculate 
of god's evasive audible great rose!

from "Epithalamion" (1923) by E. E. Cummings‭