The Road Not Taken (2008)
4'For Soprano and PianoSetting of poem by Robert Frost
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Shortly after writing A Prayer, I wrote The Road Not Taken in January 2008. I was pleased at how quickly the first song came, and applied myself to Robert Frost's well-loved poem. The song begins with overlapping rustling in the piano that brings to mind leaves. The structure of the poem allowed me to create many varying textures underneath the soprano. It has twice been performed with its predecessor as a two-song set that is only tied together by the fact that both poems end on the word "difference."
The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Premiere Performance: December 6, 2008
Student Composers Concert
8pm Ludwig Recital Hall Kent State University
Susan Fletcher, soprano
Topher Ruggiero, piano
April 30, 2009
New Music Ensemble Concert
8pm Ludwig Recital Hall Kent State University
Susan Fletcher, soprano
Topher Ruggiero, piano