Wild Nights (2016)
for SATB chorus and piano
ca. 2 minutes
Thomas Cole’s The Garden of Eden (1828), in reference to the final stanza of Dickinson’s text.
Listen
San Francisco Conservatory of Music students perform composer Collin Whitfield's "Wild Nights" in Sol Joseph Recital Hall.
Program Notes
Emily Dickinson’s Wild Nights can be interpreted as an ode to an absent lover, a longing for intimacy, or even as a spiritual beckoning to become closer to God. Allusions to the Garden of Eden and paradisiacal love reflect these juxtaposing interpretations. Ostinato figurations in the piano project the persistent tension which swells to an effervescent high upon the line “Might I but moor tonight - In thee!”. The tension remains unresolved through the double bar with the chorus and piano returning to their initial harmonic worlds (the Gocryllic scale).