Two roads diverged in a yellow wood… I can’t count the times those words have gone through my head when walking in the woods, or faced with a tough decision. Robert Frost’s poems have been in my brain since I studied them in high school English class, and sang Randall Thompson’s Frostiana in LDSS choir so many years ago.
This Saturday I have the wildly great privilege of hearing my own musical settings of three Frost poems premiered by the Elora Singers for the closing concert of the Elora Festival 2021. Complete information about the concert and tickets is found on the Festival website. Just click this link:
‘A Frost Sequence’ was composed as a continuous set of three poems – Nothing Gold Can Stay; The Road Not Taken; Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening – and the Elora Singers, under the innovative direction of Mark Vuorinen have made a stunning recording and video of the sequence. The first piece is very straight forward, like an innocent madrigal, with the repeated phrase ‘nothing gold can stay’ reminding us to seize golden moments while they last. The second is Frost’s famous poem about choosing ‘the road less travelled’. Strangely, the title of the poem refers to the ‘road not taken’ and I hear some regret in these words, that one can never turn back time and reverse the consequences of making a choice, right or wrong. The last song depicts an almost motionless musical environment. Perhaps it is the same wanderer looking into the wintry woods, longing to find that golden road not taken, but unable to indulge that ‘lovely, dark and deep’ path since there are promises to keep, and miles to go.
I wrote this music from snowy Toronto lockdown in January 2021, having no idea if it would ever be performed since choir singing has been a particular no no during COVID. During the rehearsal and recording session that I attended this month, all the singers, crew and staff self-administered rapid COVID tests on site. When all the results were in, the choir sang masked and distanced in the cavernous space of St. Peter’s Lutheran KW. I find the Elora Singers’ diction so clear that I could understand each word of Frost’s poetry, even with the challenge of singing under a mask, and listening to their rehearsal, I found I discovered new aspects to Frost’s deceptively simple poetry.
Many of Robert Frost’s poems entered public domain in January 2019. I’m sure many composers will want to express their own interpretation of these poems through music. Here’s an article pertaining to Frost’s famous poems from the Washington Post Jan 2019. My pieces will be published by Renforth Music very soon after the premiere.
Making the virtual concert video was a particular thrill since I got to meet one of my favourite Shakespearean actors Colm Feore. We recorded a pre-concert chat that reveals some surprises about the common creative process for an actor and a composer. (Did you catch his King Lear from the Stratford Festival which streamed for free during our COVID lockdown? Or perhaps you know him from Umbrella Academy.)
Elora Festival has posted a preview of the concert here:
And I hope you can join us for a watch party on Saturday evening, August 28 for the final festival concert online.
XO
This fascinating email reply came in from Michael Trott in the UK
Hello, Stephanie.
You may know this, but in case you don’t:-
Robert Frost spent the years 1912 to 1915 in England. He lived not far from me for the last two years, in the neighbourhood of Dymock as one of the group later known as the Dymock Poets. The cottages where he lived were called Little Iddens and The Gallows (!). Frost became friends with Edward Thomas and, while walking together, they came across two roads and the two weren’t sure which one to take. After Frost returned to New Hampshire in 1915, he sent Thomas a copy of the poem the walk had inspired, The Road Not Taken:-
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood …
Best wishes,
Michael
“Many of Robert Frost’s poems entered public domain in January 2019.”
Wow — thus ending decades of the estate refusing to let composers after Thompson set them to music, right? Including, famously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_(Whitacre)