Songs of the Soul (2025)
for TTBB choir and piano
Text: Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), Walt Whitman (1819-1892), and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Duration: 14 minutes
Difficulty: 3/4
Commissioned by Calgary Men's Chorus (Cassandra Dueck, artistic director) for their performance at the 2026 Unison Festival in Vancouver. To be premiered in May 2026.
Songs of the Soul was commissioned by Calgary Men’s Chorus for their appearance at Unison Festival, Canada’s quadrennial festival for 2SLGBTQI+ choirs. The theme for the 2026 festival, “Music Healing Spirit,” is reflected in the three poems used in this piece, all dating from the 19th century. The resulting three songs can be performed individually or as a complete set.
“The Poet and His Song” adapts a poem by the African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, describing the power of music to comfort and console. The opening melody, sung unaccompanied, gives way to a lush piano part and rich harmonies, contrasted by a rhythmic middle section. The music eventually builds to a joyful climax on the repeated line: “I sing my song, and all is well.”
“Song of Myself” uses a short excerpt from Section 26 of Walt Whitman’s poem, one of his most personal and epic works. The text describes what the poet hears using vivid, ecstatic imagery in a stream-of-consciousness style. My music, set in arch form, opens with a quietly sparkling introduction before progressing through several intensely rhythmic sections. Supported by a soloistic piano part, the music whirls through various keys and metres with freewheeling abandon.
The final song, “Music, When Soft Voices Die,” is a tender and emotional setting of the classic poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The music begins with a simple melody played by the solo piano, which is then sung in several variations. Eventually, the piece builds to an ecstatic climax on the final line, “love itself shall slumber on,” before subsiding and coming to a gentle close.
Click here to see the complete score.
Live recording currently unavailable. MIDI available on request.
Full Text
1. The Poet and His Song (excerpts)
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)
A song is but a little thing,
And yet what joy it is to sing!
In hours of toil it gives me zest,
And when at eve I long for rest;
When cows come home along the bars,
And in the fold I hear the bell,
As Night, the shepherd, herds his stars,
I sing my song, and all is well.
There are no ears to hear my lays,
No lips to lift a word of praise;
But still, with faith unfaltering,
I live and laugh and love and sing.
What matters yon unheeding throng?
They cannot feel my spirit’s spell,
Since life is sweet and love is long,
I sing my song, and all is well.
My days are never days of ease;
I till my ground and prune my trees.
When ripened gold is all the plain,
I put my sickle to the grain.
I labor hard, and toil and sweat,
While others dream within the dell;
But even while my brow is wet,
I sing my song, and all is well.
2. Song of Myself (1892 version, excerpts from Section 26)
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Now I will do nothing but listen.
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,
Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city,
The loud laugh of work-people at their meals,
The angry base of disjointed friendship,
The faint tones of the sick.
I hear the violoncello,
('tis the young man's heart's complaint,)
I hear the key'd cornet,
It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly.
I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera,
Ah this indeed is music—this suits me.
The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies,
It wrenches such ardors from me
I did not know I possess'd them,
It sails me, I dab with bare feet,
Steep'd amid honey'd morphine,
My windpipe throttled in fakes of death,
At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles,
And that we call Being.
3. Music, When Soft Voices Die
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.