Tennyson’s poem opens with rather conventional imagery (crashing sea, coldness, grayness). So, too, the music starts with a texture that mimics the endless crashing waves—a cascade of falling voices resolving suspensions only to create new ones: “break, break, break, …” The main narrative is then taken up by the choir in a style that is thick with suspensions that reflect the narrator’s yearning…
Wind of the Western Sea
An easy-to-learn SA and piano choral setting of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Sweet and Low” that addresses timeless themes of familial love. The music captures the rolling waves of the sea and the inner emotional turmoil of a mother singing to her child, reflecting the uncertainty of her love’s return from the sea.
English, Lord Tennyson, Piano, SA