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There Will Come Soft Rains - (2013)
Sara Teasdale
for mezzo soprano and piano
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.3 pages, circa 3' 45"
Sara Teasdale
The text is found in Teasdale's Flame and Shadow, 1920. For other settings of her texts, click here.
A simple, measure-long gesture repeats throughout, sometimes with a lingering bass note and others with octaves above it. Time passes as the text unfolds with a measured pace, ritardandi and ensuing a tempi. The message speaks of nature's distance -- "not one will care" -- from not of man's obsession with warring, often between similar peoples, but even an awareness of mankind were we "gone." The self-importance of "isms" conflate to "I'm right and you're wrong," while nature continues on without taint of such human self-importance and self-deception.
The score for There Will Come Soft Rains is available as a free PDF download, though any major commercial performance or recording of the work is prohibited without prior arrangement with the composer. Click on the graphic below for this piano-vocal score.
