The ocean solitudes

Program Notes

Nodding to the Nathaniel Hawthorne poem and Claude Debussy's Cathédrale engloutie, this work envisions a coastal town completely underwater in the aftermath of rising sea levels. Like a new Atlantis, the town is a graveyard frozen in time. The melodic fragments in the piece emerge and dissolve with little control or regulation. In this hypothetical dystopia, the time to make change has passed; all that remains are the bells of sunken cathedrals, broken bits of antique flooring, and resignation to peaceful sleep.

Text

The Ocean - Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)

The Ocean has its silent caves,

Deep, quiet, and alone;

Though there be fury on the waves,

Beneath them there is none.

The awful spirits of the deep

Hold their communion there;

And there are those for whom we weep,

The young, the bright, the fair.

Calmly the wearied seamen rest

Beneath their own blue sea.

The ocean solitudes are blest,

For there is purity.

The earth has guilt, the earth has care,

Unquiet are its graves;

But peaceful sleep is ever there,

Beneath the dark blue waves.