In effect it is this: that I love you (2023) (art song) - Ethan Soledad

Art song for tenor and piano quintet (2 violins, viola, cello, and piano).
Premiered in Hirsch Hall of Rice University's Shepherd School of Music, Composers Forum Concert, April 15th 2023.
Performers:
Collin LaHood, tenor
Elise Haukenes and Hannah Corbett, violins
Julia Kirk, viola
Nathan Hsu, cello
Anna-Sofia Botti, piano
Program Note
This song is based on a love letter written by renowned WWI poet Wilfred Owen to his colonel, mentor, and fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon. I had originally written a piano trio in 2021 inspired by the letter but without setting any of the text. While this piece takes heavily from the sound world and gestures in the original piano trio, it is still very much its own individual piece, albeit with a few references sprinkled in throughout.
The original sought to portray the tragic aspect of their story as Owen unfortunately died before the end of the war and Sassoon lived with that guilt for the rest of his life. In contrast, I think of this song as portraying the hopeful, perhaps naive aspect of the bond these two shared. That in spite of the pain and suffering found throughout the world and in their lives, it’s not enough to stop them from experiencing and cherishing the love they have for one another.
Wilfred Owen’s letter to Siegfried Sassoon. 27 November 1917. Public domain.
“My dear Sassoon,
When I had opened your envelope in a quiet corner of the Club Staircase, I sat on the stairs and groaned a little, and then went up and loosed off a gourd, Gothic vacuum of a letter, which I "put by" until I could think over the thing without grame.
Show some rich anger if you will. I thank you; but not on this paper only, or in any writing. Know that since mid-September, when you still regarded me as a tiresome little knocker on your door, I held you as Keats + Christ + Elijah + my Colonel + my father-confessor + Amenophis IV in profile.
What's that mathematically?
In effect it is this: that I love you, dispassionately, so much, so very much, dear Fellow, that the blasting little smile you wear on reading this can't hurt me in the least.
If you consider what the above Names have severally done for me, you will know what you are doing. And you have fixed my Life - however short. You did not light me: I was always a mad comet; but you have fixed me. I spun round you a satellite for a month, but I shall swing out soon, a dark star in the orbit where you will blaze. It is some consolation to know that Jupiter himself sometimes swims out of Ken!”