A Child said, What is the grass?
VIDEO
Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra; Stephen Alltop, conductor
Soloists: Sarah Gartshore, soprano
DURATION
2’45”
POET
Walt Whitman
INSTRUMENTATION
Soprano with piano
YEAR COMPOSED
2014
THIS IS A MOVEMENT FROM:
Terra Nostra
COMMISSIONER
Commissioned by the San Francisco Choral Society and the Piedmont East Bay Children's Choir
as part of Terra Nostra (oratorio).
ORDERING SCORES
Theodore Presser Company
Click to visit product page.
TEXT
A child said, What is the grass? Fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is, any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord.
A scented gift and remembrance, designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say, Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.
PERUSAL SCORE
Orchestrated version: https://issuu.com/theodorepresser/docs/garrop_terra_nostra_issuu/100