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- Tarik O'Regan
After Rain (Petrichor) (2012)
- Novello & Co Ltd (World)
- 0010/0000/perc/hp/str(6.6.4.4.2)
- SATB chorus with divisions
- Soprano
- 13 min
- Edward Thomas
- English
Programme Note
Commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University, the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award presented by Chorus America and funded by the American Composers Forum, and Utah Chamber Artists.
First performed 30 April 2012 at the Libby Gardner Concert Hall, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, by Utah Chamber Artists conducted by Barlow Bradford.
Texts by Edward Thomas (1878-1917):
Where any turn may lead to Heaven
Or any corner may hide Hell
Roads shining like river up hill after rain
These three lines of text were found on a slip of paper inside Thomas’s War Diary
(1 January - 8 April, 1917).
It Rains
It rains, and nothing stirs within the fence
Anywhere through the orchard's untrodden, dense
Forest of parsley. The great diamonds
Of rain on the grassblades there is none to break,
Or the fallen petals further down to shake.
And I am nearly as happy as possible
To search the wilderness in vain though well,
To think of two walking, kissing there,
Drenched, yet forgetting the kisses of the rain:
Sad, too, to think that never, never again,
Unless alone, so happy shall I walk
In the rain. When I turn away, on its fine stalk
Twilight has fined to naught, the parsley flower
Figures, suspended still and ghostly white,
The past hovering as it revisits the light.
After Rain
The rain of a night and a day and a night
Stops at the light
Of this pale choked day. The peering sun
Sees what has been done.
The road under the trees has a border new
Of purple hue
Inside the border of bright thin grass:
For all that has
Been left by November of leaves is torn
From hazel and thorn
And the greater trees. Throughout the copse
No dead leaf drops
On grey grass, green moss, burnt-orange fern,
At the wind's return:
The leaflets out of the ash-tree shed
Are thinly spread
In the road, like little black fish, inlaid,
As if they played.
What hangs from the myriad branches down there
So hard and bare
Is twelve yellow apples lovely to see
On one crab-tree.
And on each twig of every tree in the dell
Uncountable
Crystals both dark and bright of the rain
That begins again.
First performed 30 April 2012 at the Libby Gardner Concert Hall, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, by Utah Chamber Artists conducted by Barlow Bradford.
Texts by Edward Thomas (1878-1917):
Where any turn may lead to Heaven
Or any corner may hide Hell
Roads shining like river up hill after rain
These three lines of text were found on a slip of paper inside Thomas’s War Diary
(1 January - 8 April, 1917).
It Rains
It rains, and nothing stirs within the fence
Anywhere through the orchard's untrodden, dense
Forest of parsley. The great diamonds
Of rain on the grassblades there is none to break,
Or the fallen petals further down to shake.
And I am nearly as happy as possible
To search the wilderness in vain though well,
To think of two walking, kissing there,
Drenched, yet forgetting the kisses of the rain:
Sad, too, to think that never, never again,
Unless alone, so happy shall I walk
In the rain. When I turn away, on its fine stalk
Twilight has fined to naught, the parsley flower
Figures, suspended still and ghostly white,
The past hovering as it revisits the light.
After Rain
The rain of a night and a day and a night
Stops at the light
Of this pale choked day. The peering sun
Sees what has been done.
The road under the trees has a border new
Of purple hue
Inside the border of bright thin grass:
For all that has
Been left by November of leaves is torn
From hazel and thorn
And the greater trees. Throughout the copse
No dead leaf drops
On grey grass, green moss, burnt-orange fern,
At the wind's return:
The leaflets out of the ash-tree shed
Are thinly spread
In the road, like little black fish, inlaid,
As if they played.
What hangs from the myriad branches down there
So hard and bare
Is twelve yellow apples lovely to see
On one crab-tree.
And on each twig of every tree in the dell
Uncountable
Crystals both dark and bright of the rain
That begins again.
Scores
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