Premiered by the University of Louisville Cardinal Singers under the direction of Dr. Won Joo Ahn on November 7th, 2024.
Soprano Soloist: Sarah Byrd
Program Note: What haunts you? Though Protestant in faith, William Butler Yeats was deeply fascinated with and influenced by the mystical folklore of Ireland, particularly with spirits that resided in Ireland’s lush natural beauty. In “The Everlasting Voices,” Yeats is not merely referring to these external spirits; he’s also referring to his inner anxieties and doubts. He implores the “voices” to return to the natural landscape where they belong and be found in the wind and on the shore instead of driving him insane.
In today’s digital, algorithmic age, we are bombarded with continuous media and online voices showing us all of the atrocities the world has to offer and “influencers” with all the answers for how to fix our own lives while revealing nothing of their own. We are more connected than ever before, and we are more disillusioned with our sense of self as a result. In this piece, I sought to evoke the rich natural landscapes Yeats vividly portrays along with the anxieties he implores to leave him and the digital anxieties we all encounter today. Despite a vastly changed world since Yeats’ passing, I imagine his advice would be unchanged: engage with the natural world around you. Find a creek, or a shore, or a mountain, or a plain, or a cave, and leave time for wonder. May your everlasting voices be still.
The Everlasting Voices
-by William Butler Yeats
O sweet everlasting Voices, be still;
Go to the guards of the heavenly fold
And bid them wander obeying your will,
Flame under flame, till Time be no more;
Have you not heard that our hearts are old,
That you call in birds, in wind on the hill,
In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore?
O sweet everlasting Voices, be still.