Trajectory of Flight | Erik Nielsen Music

Trajectory of Flight is a cycle of six songs for mezzo-soprano and strings. The work was written in 2011 for a concert of some of my choral and vocal works. All poems are by Vermont poet Jean L. Connor. Here they are:

NOW, IN MARCH

Outside, drifts of brazen snow

and the bitter hour glass of cold.

Inside, pressed against the pane,

pots of green and the first white

geranium, tenuous, unfolding.

And hidden deep within, the stubborn

candle of my will, ablaze,

steady, before that duality,

death, a February thing, and life,

which reaches out to April

and on occasion sings.

ALLEGRO: A MAY SONG FOR

NESTING SWALLOWS AND FLUTE

Lay claim my love. This flowering

tree is ours, this sweet aperture

our home. Now the high notes,

reedy, clear. Listen. Music, dipped

in azure, ripples towards the sun.

Ascend. Ascend. Join forces

with the flute. Come breast the sky,

the gentian sky. Turn. Turn.

Scissor the fabric, release the tethered world.

III

EVENING

Down in the woods,

a thrush repeats

the measured triads

of his flute-like song,

recounts the old rhapsodic tales

of lost serenities and peace.

As darkness deepens,

his voice grows still

and I am left

holding silence

in a thin white cup,

gold-banded,

rare.

LATE AUGUST

Everything was made of time:

the apples, green, the milk-weed pods,

split and drying, the seeds,

wind-borne, driven.

All was movement and becoming,

clouds cartwheeled through space,

never arriving. Day held

no fixed point, only urgencies

and the tattered banners

of the hours. At last,

the longed-for darkness came,

hollowed out, shaped as night.

Then, not as an intruder,

but as one accustomed to the place,

the hour, a cricket began to sing,

steady, sure, and as he sang

the world slowed to meet

his pace, found itself webbed

about in peace. The grasses–

sleep-heavy, wet with dew.

KEEPING THE SILENCE

If you listen,

you hear apples fall

and the low nasal complaint

of a nuthatch.

In the distance,

a man hammers, a dog barks,

the church bell

mingles with the cry of asters.

In the wind-dipped silence,

I hold a space apart:

the call of jays

cannot reach me.

I have become amenable

to purple, the savor of grapes,

the waning of crimson,

the fall of leaves.

Now in October,

I sing a slow song,

praising the gold

of diminishment.

ALMOST NIGHT

Quick flight of a bird

across the field that lies

outstretched before the night.

Only silence in the going.

Late, late. And a cool mist rising.

Unknown the name,

unknown the color,

the only certitude,

the dark trajectory of flight.

The performance is by mezzo-soprano Wendy Hoffman, Sofia Hirsch and Laura Markowitz, violins; Elizabeth Reid, viola; John Dunlop, cello; and Evan Premo, bass; conducted by me.

I- Now, in March:

II- Allegro:

III- Evening:

IV- Late August:

V- Keeping the Silence:

VI- Almost Night: