White Birds
Publisher: LAH Publications
Catalogue Number: LAH-83
Year: 2024
For: SATB
Duration: 4:30
Commissioned by New Dublin Voices – Bernie Sherlock, Artistic Director
A setting of ‘The White Birds’ by William Butler Yeats. Yeats penned ‘The White Birds’ in 1892 after the first of four unsuccessful proposals to Irish actress, republican, and revolutionary, Maud Gonne. He proposed as they walked together along the cliffs of Howth in Ireland, and during this walk, Maud had declared her love of seagulls above all other birds.
I was drawn to this poem because of the imagery, and perhaps because I too love seagulls above all other birds. I have taken an optimistic approach to my setting, and have imagined this poem as a fantasy. I decided to imagine it not as a lament or an expression unrequited love, but rather as a daydream or fantasy, where the two lovers would be free and happy together, untethered by the complications of the world. The piece expresses that happy, free-as-birds-together, playing-on-the-wind place.
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