Some Blessed Hope - SATB - DTM011
Some Blessed Hope - SATB - DTM011
Some Blessed Hope collects three pieces set to texts by Victorian-era poets: Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Snow-flakes by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy. The pieces are arranged to display a narrative of hope juxtaposed against the harshness of winter. Crossing the Bar, while not directly about winter, focuses largely on the hope of peace in passing over from one land to the next, either in the literal crossing between the Isle of Wight and England, or between one life to the next. The waters of these crossings are especially treacherous during wintertime, and as such, I determined that this text was still appropriate for this set. Snow-flakes explores the process of expressing one’s grief in the form of art, using the parallel of snowfall as nature’s own artistic expression. Finally, The Darkling Thrush tells of a bird singing merrily against the bitter and icy world of winter, telling of a hope for a brighter tomorrow. It is subtly hinted in the poem that this may be the end of the thrush’s life. As such, one may interpret that the hope about which the bird sings refers to heaven, connecting the messages of hope across all three pieces through the winter imagery, connecting to Snow-flakes, and the peace of the hereafter, connecting to Crossing the Bar.