“I Could Not See to See” was written for the Nyíregyházi Cantemus Kórus in Hungary in the Winter of 2023 setting Emily Dickinson’s famous “I heard a Fly Buzz when I died” poem for SATB chorus.
The poem depicts with the moment of death. Instead of portraying with the usual brush hyper-Romanticism and spirituality, it emphasizes the mundane such as a fy buzzing around or describing signing their livelihood away in their Will. In the fnal stanza, the buzz of the fy comes back, as a reminder that the moment of departure is near, “and then the windows failed – and then I could not see to see”. The speaker succumbs to death in the end, without any grandiose pageantry.
I use the “buzz” motif throughout the piece to various effects; Sometimes to set an ambivalent mood, sometimes wistful and sometimes redemptive. The piece also uses silence as a dramatic mechanism to portray the intensity of the “Stillness in the Room”. While composing it, this short choral piece felt like a long phrase from the beginning to end, rendering a solemn moment stretched in time.
