Elemental Songs
Mezzo soprano and piano, 15 minutes, moderately difficult
High voice version also available
Songs:
The Ancient Pine
This Iron Soil
Snowstorm
Teach Me Your Mood
And Things Ripen
Dissipation
Program Note
Elemental Songs is a setting of six of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poems on nature and explores the themes of growth and stability. The title of the cycle comes from the last song in the set. In the poem, Emerson evocatively describes how the limbs and branches of a tree reach into the air “as if they loved the element”. The sound in this cycle exists in that abstract world and each song reflects on the “element” in its own unique way.
Sample Pages