Typhous Tranquility

This piece has been based off a poem by Lynne Knight, Body in Late Meditation. The melodic soprano line has the words of the poem with a piano accompaniment. Each stanza throughout the piece has its own character and theme, but still fits within the genre the poem describes generally. This poem to me is about the relaxation and the struggle to feel completely at peace. The makeshift title “Typhous Tranquility” means diseases caused by rickettsia leading to peace. To have true amity, you must first struggle and fight. With this motive in mind, I created this piece with a flip-flop sensation between struggle and peace using the various features that music has to offer. The poem is as follows: An hour from now the river will be grey, the last light rising up from it like smoke, all trace of its red brilliance gone. This day will be the past, when voices called or spoke like rushing water, slowing as the cold of night came nearer with its hints of death. How quick all passing is! Even these bold reds, spread like fire, give way to icy breath tingeing the trees and banks unearthly white. If night were one long dream of being held inside the lover’s arms, we’d stay there, light with joy we’d never want to see dispelled. We’d lose these dark-banked fears of growing old, of slipping off like water, deep and cold.