Choral Choir (SAB) - Digital Download SKU: A0.960316 Composed by Stephen Smith. Contemporary. Octavo. 12 pages. Stephen Smith #6671873. Published by Stephen Smith (A0.960316). Composed during the pandemic, this setting for SAB chorus and piano of Thomas Hardy's poem, The Darkling Thrush begins with a bleak picture of a barren and hostile landscape in winter. Then, as the voices narrate the sudden appearance of an agèd thrush, frail, gaunt, and small who floods the air with joyous singing, the piano accompaniment bursts into a reel. The final stanza muses that the cause for the bird's ecstatic sounds must have been some blessed hope / Whereof he knew and I was unaware. (Also available for TTBB -- check that version for a different audio excerpt.).
