Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

GEOFFREY PETERSON

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Chorus

2022

Program Notes: Robert Frost wrote Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening in 1922. Frost referred to the poem as his “best bid for remembrance.” It was published, along with other celebrated poems, including Fire and Ice and Nothing Gold Can Stay, in his collection New Hampshire in 1923. Writer Ellen Kaufman depicts the poem’s beautifully evocative “back drop of a late dark wintry sundown, a harsh and bitter winter (‘The darkest evening of the year’) . . . The narrator of ‘Stopping by Woods’ is compelled to make a significant ethical choice, which his cherished horse does not seem to concur with . . . The night, as well as the winter, is closely related to old age, pain, loneliness, and death . . . Just as the woods are ‘lovely, dark and deep’ to him, so does death look to him. Death seems not to be so unnerving, grim, or even scary – but rather fascinating, welcoming, almost a feeling of relief.” I intended the slow repeating tone cluster chords in the last section as a solemn meditation on death. I wanted to be as deliberate as possible with the poem’s two concluding quintessential lines “And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.” Setting those particular words to music, together with the whole poem, was very cathartic and deeply personal for me. It was the first music I had written after having had open heart surgery in the midst of the pandemic in 2021. I was very much in the thick of processing the entire ordeal and reflecting on how my life had been saved. Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
Performer Credits: Cleveland Chamber Choir
Publisher: Geoffrey Peterson Music
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