A Day of Sunshine

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A Day of Sunshine for Chorus and Orchestra was begun in June of 2009 and completed in December of the same year. The work is written for and dedicated to the Longfellow Chorus of Portland, Maine and Charles Kaufmann, director. I joined my college's chorus in my first year in college, after not singing since I was a young boy. I will forever be thankful that the first work I sung in was Ralph Vaughan Williams's beautiful and powerful “Sea Symphony”, which I completely fell in love with and spurred my continued interest in works for chorus and orchestra. I later also sung in Bach's “St. Matthew Passion” and “Mass in B minor”, as well as William Bolcom's massive “Songs of Innocence and of Experience”.

My work sets three poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, namely, “Daybreak”, “A Day of Sunshine”, and “Sundown”. The entire work is named after the middle poem, as the three poems combine to tell the story of an entire day.

In “Daybreak”, we follow a joyful wind that awakens the world to the new, promising, and beautiful day, but its final line hints that all may not be as perfect as it seems.

The middle movement, “A Day of Sunshine” is entirely a song of thanks for being alive and the gift of life in the beauty of the natural world. Again the wind returns to uplift the feelings and words of the singers. Since moving to Boulder, Colorado in the middle of working on this piece, the amazing imagery and lines of poetry in this poem have taken on special meaning for me. I will now always associate the lines “Whose steep sierra far uplifts,/Its craggy summits white with drifts” with hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park and being amongst some of the most beautiful natural creations the earth has made. Ever since singing in the “Sea Symphony”, I realized how powerfully a chorus and orchestra could illuminate these words. Whitman's lines “Finally shall come the poet worthy that name,/The true son of God shall come singing.” are unimpressive sitting on a piece of paper, but when Vaughan Williams liberated them into the voices and instruments for his Symphony, I was so moved by its power. I hope that I have accomplished the same thing in this song, especially during the lines “Blow winds! and waft through all the rooms/The snowflakes of the cherry blooms!/Blow winds! and bend within my reach/The fiery blossoms of the peach!” I hope that when hearing my setting of these lines listeners will feel like they are standing on the top of a mountain looking over the world, as if the wind would lift them of their feet and sweep them back into being a real part of the beautiful natural world that we came from. The final line asks, and challenges, the listener to do just that.

The final poem, “Sundown” depicts the sun's beautiful disappearance at the end of the day. It reminds us that not all is perfect; that we still must take the good with the bad. We still have so much work to do and progress to make in creating a beautiful world and life for all. Nevertheless, we should be thankful for the beautiful day we have been blessed with today.

I am extremely grateful to the Longfellow Chorus and Charles Kaufmann for the opportunity to write this work and have it performed. I must say that I have never had a performance of a work for full chorus or full orchestra, and my first for either is for them together! I really wonder how many composers can say that!

Winner of the 1st Prize in the 2010 Longfellow Chorus International Composers Cantata Competition.

Finalist, 2013 Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra Young Composers Competition (Mvt II only).

Premiered February 27, 2010 by the Longfellow Chorus and Orchestra, Charles Kaufmann-conductor, in Portland, ME.

Text

1. Daybreak

A wind came up out of the sea,
And said, “O mists, make room for me.”
It hailed the ships, and cried, “Sail on,
Ye mariners, the night is gone.”
And hurried landward far away,
Crying, “Awake! it is the day.”
It said unto the forest, “Shout!
Hang all your leafy banners out!”
It touched the wood-birds folded wing,
And said, “O bird, awake and sing.”

And o’er the farms, “O chanticleer,
Your clarion blow; the day is near.”
It whispered to the fields of corn,
“Bow down, and hail the coming morn.”
It shouted through the belfry-tower,
“Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour.”
It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,
And said, “Not yet! in quiet lie.”


2. A Day of Sunshine

O gift of God!  O perfect day:
Whereon shall no man work, but play;
Whereon it is enough for me,
Not to be doing, but to be! 
Through every fibre of my brain,
Through every nerve, through every vein,
I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much. 
I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument. 
And over me unrolls on high
The splendid scenery of the sky,

Where through a sapphire sea the sun
Sails like a golden galleon, 
Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts
Its craggy summits white with drifts. 
Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms
The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms!
Blow, winds! and bend within my reach
The fiery blossoms of the peach! 
O Life and Love! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!
O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?


3. Sundown

The summer sun is sinking low;
Only the tree-tops redden and glow:
Only the weathercock on the spire
Of the neighboring church is a flame of fire;
All is in shadow below.

O beautiful, awful summer day,
What hast thou given, what taken away?
Life and death, and love and hate,
Homes made happy or desolate,
Hearts made sad or gay!

On the road of life one mile-stone more!
In the book of life one leaf turned o’er!
Like a red seal is the setting sun
On the good and the evil men have done,—
Naught can to-day restore!

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow