“A Strange Courage” podcast
“A Strange Courage” podcast
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
"A Strange Courage"
for SATB
and Piano
Text : "Nuances of a Theme by Williams"
by Wallace Stevens
expanding on four lines by William Carlos Williams, by pemission of Alfred A. Knopf, publisher
It’s a strange courage
you give me, ancient star:
Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!
I
Shine alone, shine nakedly, shine like
bronze,
that reflects neither my face nor any inner
part
of my being, shine like fire, that mirrors
nothing.
II
Lend no part to any humanity that suffuses
you in its own light.
Be not chimera of morning,
Half‐man, half‐star.
Be not an intelligence,
Like a widow’s bird
Or an old horse.
"A Strange Courage"
Commissioned
and performed at The Museum of Art and Design
by Robert Bass and
The Collegiate Chorale Singers New York, 2003