Elijah Harrison - Requiem based on the poetry of Emily Dickinson: A Clock Stopped + Sanctus

Two selections from Elijah Harrison's own "Requiem based on the poetry of Emily Dickinson," including "A Clock Stopped" and "Sanctus ('Hope' is the thing with feathers)," as performed on the Student Composition Recital at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music on April 22nd, 2024 at 8pm ET in Auer Hall.
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0:50 - A Clock Stopped
7:10 - Sanctus ("Hope" is the thing with feathers)
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PERSONNEL:
Ryan Rogers, CONDUCTOR
Elijah Harrison Buerk, ORGAN/COMPOSER
SOPRANO 1
Eva Wilhelm
SOPRANO 2
Erin Blake
Gabriela Martinez
ALTO
Lauren Smedberg
TENOR
Wade FitzGerald
Niko Slaughter
BARITONE
Caden Cole (SOLOIST)
Alexander Toth
BASS
Sy Anderson
Thejas Mirle
Isaac Smith
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PROGRAM NOTE:
This Requiem is an ongoing passion project for me, something I have sporadically returned to throughout the years. The general concept of many of these songs is to reimagine Emily Dickinson’s poetry in a quasi-verse-chorus form, sometimes utilizing the traditional Latin text of the requiem mass. It is certainly not a liturgical piece. Rather, it is a response to sacred music in the context of a modern dilemma.
Emily Dickinson lived in a time when science and philosophy were beginning to advance. During her life, philosophers such as Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche began to look at the concepts of religion through a more critical lens. The Industrial Revolution and the American Civil War were at hand, and, in 1859, Charles Darwin would publish his book On the Origin of Species, introducing the theory of evolution and turning the Biblical creation story on its head. Dickinson, raised in the Calvinist tradition, would become ever more skeptical of the faith throughout her life, which is more than evident in her poetry - see “I know that He exists” and “This world is not conclusion.” Many of these poems dwell on the concept of death - Dickinson knew death herself very well, having seen many of her family and friends pass before her own demise. I believe that the themes explored in Dickinson's poetry are even more relevant in our modern society, where science and religion can often be at odds with each other.
“A Clock stopped” could be considered an analogy for death. Although the subject of the poem certainly appears to be a clock, with its "Gilded Pointers" being fixed by a Genevan shopman, certain anthropomorphic ideas emerge from the text: for example, “The Figures hunched - with pain -” and its being examined by “Doctors.” Perhaps most striking is how “Decades of Arrogance” may separate the “Dial [mortal] life” of the “Clock” from “Him” (a life in Christ).
Within the context of Dickinson’s writing, “Hope” may easily refer to “Faith.” I have decided to paint the idea of “the tune without the words” quite literally in my setting of this text (if the words are in a dead language, then the tune is functionally wordless, right?). Notice that in my interpretation, “Hope” does not go unchallenged - after the question “what storm could abash this little bird?” is presented, the blatant shift to minor seems to say “this storm!” Perhaps “Hope” comes out triumphant in this scenario? Maybe that is not that point. Maybe the point is just to have fun in spite of the absurdity of a temporal life! You decide.
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TEXTS:
(FR 259)
A Clock stopped -
Not the Mantel's -
Geneva's farthest skill
Can't put the puppet bowing -
That just now dangled still -
An awe came on the Trinket!
The Figures hunched - with pain -
Then quivered out of Decimals -
Into Degreeless noon -
It will not stir for Doctors -
This Pendulum of snow -
The Shopman importunes it -
While cool - concernless No -
Nods from the Gilded pointers -
Nods from the Seconds slim -
Decades of Arrogance between
The Dial life -
And Him -
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(FR 314)
"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I've heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
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Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni sunt cæli et terra gloria tua.
Hosanna in excelsis.
("Holy, Holy, Holy
Lord God of Sabaoth.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.")