I love Dickinson’s poetry; however, I can’t say I read this one in the past. As usual, Frank has done an outstanding job putting it to music. — kenne
How has it been this far into National Poetry Month before featuring Emily Dickinson here? Well, no matter, time to get onto that today, as a number of our most popular pieces over the years have been related to Dickinson. Today’s piece is one of my personal favorites, our orchestral setting for her “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark.”
When I did this setting and then its subsequent performance back in 2017 I went intuitively with a contrary reading of this poem. Generally, Dickinson’s poem is read as saying that when we reach a point of uncertainty bordering on no knowledge whatsoever, we may still press ahead, and if we don’t exactly find our way, we may find a way.*
But that message is delivered in a vivid little parable whose details can undercut that “persevere” moral — and those images’ undercurrent, along with some American cultural dread from that…
View original post 284 more words
Becoming is Superior to Being 
Leave a Reply