Plath Songs: Blackberrying

Background

“Blackberrying” is the epic final movement of Plath Songs.  It recounts an outing to gather blackberries on a path that leads to the sea.

An atmospheric piano part paints the scene, and the singers convey the energy of an outdoors walk, with a pause now and again to pick the berries which Plath describes as “big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes ebon in the hedges, fat with blue-red juices.”  Little by little the vista opens, first with the “high, green meadows” that are greeted by a new, active theme in the piano, and next with the strong, sea wind, which Plath describes as “funnel[ing] at me, slapping its phantom laundry in my face.”

Finally the sea comes into view, revealed as a “great space of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths beating and beating at an intractable metal.”  The voices rise in great unison gestures at the close, as the piano and tubular bells conjure the daunting power of the scene in futile repetitions of their hammering motives.

Commissioned by the Los Angeles Master Chorale
Premiere: June 2, 2013, Grant Gershon, conducting