I am not trying to describe the poem (although at certain points it may seem so), but only the overall impression that each leaves with me. After writing for full orchestra so often, the reduction of my palate to 4 clarinets is a welcomed challenge for me.
Lyrics
WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN’D ASTRONOMER
By Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.