T.S. Eliot Song Listing

Inspired by The Burial of the Dead, part I of The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot. Composed April 3-6, 2011.

The awful daring of a moment’s surrender

Which an age of prudence can never retract

By this, and this only, we have existed

Inspired by What the Thunder Said, part V of The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot. The opening and closing theme is loosely drawn from several hymns by Ralph Vaughn Williams. Composed March 12-20, 2011.

Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing

White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme.

From Ash Wednesday, by T.S. Eliot. Composed June 2009-April 2011. For that friend who walked through a bright cloud of tears.

What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.

From Burnt Norton, by T.S. Eliot. Composed February 20-March 8, 2011.

From Burnt Norton by T.S. Eliot. Composed in December 2009. For Bob.

The title to this song resembles a draft verse for an unpublished poem by T.S. Eliot discussed in M.A.R. Habib's book The Early T.S. Eliot and Western Philosophy:

After the turning of a thousand days

After the praying and the silence and the crying . . .

The world has ended—like a Sunday outing.

Alternative meanings of the phrase are familiar. Composed January 8-9, 2011.

Composed April 23-24, 2011.

Eliot explained that this Sanskrit mantra that forms the last line of The Waste Land roughly means, "The Peace which passeth understanding." Musically, this piece alludes to a soft passage in Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. Composed in July 2010 and April 2011.

Composed May 7-8, 2011.

Composed May 10-14, 2011.

A good question posed in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I quote Gabriel Fauré's Pavane, Op. 50. Composed June 11-12, 2011.

The first line of Prufrock. Musically, this piece is influenced by Ottorino Respighi's The Pines of the Appian Way from Pines of Rome. Composed October 15, 2011.

Music for Burnt Norton. In the rose-garden, love transcends time and space. The last part is inspired by a drum duet I heard Bill Bruford and Phil Collins perform in 1976. Composed September 12, 2011.

Music for The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Composed October 23, 2011.

The beginning of the last line of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Composed October 26-29, 2011.

Music for Prufrock. Composed November 3-5, 2011.

From The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Composed November 9-13, 2011.

Named for one of Eliot's most haunting lines in Prufrock. Composed between November 1 and 20, 2011.

From Prufrock. Composed November 2011.

From Prufrock. Composed between November 24 and December 18, 2011.

Composed December 16, 2011-January 8, 2012.

From Prufrock. Composed January 21, 2012.

From Prufrock. Composed January 21, 2012.