Tread Softly (2018/REV.2022)

for orchestra [2.2.2.2 - 4.2.3.1 - timp.3perc* - strings] 

duration: 6’

Premiere: July 5, 2022 @ Isabel Bader Hall, Kingston ON (as part of the NYO Composer Mentor Program)

Gregory Oh (conductor) , National Youth Orchestra of Canada (as part of the NYO Composer Mentor Program)

*Percussion Instruments:

1 = Vibraphone, Medium China Cymbal (shared with 2), Glockenspiel (shared with 2)

2 = Crotales, Medium China Cymbal (shared with 1), Glockenspiel (shared with 1), Bass Drum

3 = 3 Woodblocks (low, medium, high), Snare Drum, Tambourine, Tam-Tam, 6 Almglocken (pitched A#4, B4, C#5, E5, F#5, G#5)

Programme Note:

The title of this work is taken from the final line of William Butler Yeats’ poem, He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven. With this piece, I wanted to capture the beautiful imagery that Yeats creates in describing “the heavens’ embroidered cloths”, while also evoking the deep sense of longing and humility that is apparent within the text. There is an ephemeral nature to the language that he uses – referring to the many qualities of light, from brilliant luminance to an almost hazy dawn. This is the essence of what I tried to capture within this work.

On a personal level, this poem was also painted on a wall of my home growing up and later was inscribed onto a piece of artwork that still hangs in my mother’s living room. It’s a text that has always passively been a part of my life. 

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

“Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

-W.B.Yeats