Said a Blade of Grass, for SATB chorus, tells a story about the cycle of seasons and the passing of generations. Khalil Gibran’s text, from his 1918 volume The Madman, depicts a conversation between a blade of grass—earthbound, world-weary, and ready for winter—and a falling leaf—cocky, naïve, and floating acrobatically on the wind. The great irony is that the leaf will eventually reach ground and awaken from winter sleep having become a blade of grass, fulfilling a cycle that affects all who grow old. Said a Blade of Grass was written in 2016 at the Lehigh Choral Composers Forum in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and premiered there by The Princeton Singers with conductor Steven Sametz.
Recording: vocalists of the Jacobs School of Music; Gabrielle Gaudreault, conductor (Bloomington, Indiana, 2017)
Said a Blade of Grass
from The Madman
Said a blade of grass to an autumn leaf, “You make such a noise falling! You scatter all my winter dreams.”
Said the leaf indignant, “Low-born and low-dwelling! Songless, peevish thing! You live not in the upper air and you cannot tell the sound of singing.”
Then the autumn leaf lay down upon the earth and slept. And when spring came she waked again—and she was a blade of grass.
And when it was autumn and her winter sleep was upon her, and above her through all the air the leaves were falling, she muttered to herself, “O these autumn leaves! They make such noise! They scatter all my winter dreams.”
Khalil Gibran (1883–1931)