Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nothing Gold Can Stay - Philomène Larocque

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Nothing Gold Can Stay - Program note

"Composed in 2018, Nothing Gold Can Stay is the result of university work carried out as part of the Composition according to the modern style course at the University of Sherbrooke and won, with 3 other pieces, the prize in the Composition Competition for chorus. This piece was inspired by the famous poem Nothing Gold Can Stay, by Robert Frost, written in 1923 and published in The Yale Review. It was later published in the New Hampshire collection, earning the author, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1924.

This work is an amalgam of New Age, popular and modal music. Intending to be singing on the one hand, luminous and contemplative on the other, its main theme, subject to contrapuntal and syncopated games, creates a broad and warm atmosphere."

A special thanks to Christophe Pilon for recording this music during the end-of-session choral concert at l'Église St-Jean-Baptiste. To learn more about Christophe Pilon, click here.

Credits:

Choirmaster: Robert Ingari
Interpreters: Ensemble vocal de l'Université de Sherbrooke

Recording: Christophe Pilon

Audio editing: Christophe Pilon

Mix and mastering: Christophe Pilon

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

L'Or n'est en Rien Éternel

Nature tes premiers vert sont or

Ta fraîcheur est trésor

Ta feuille nouvelle est fleur

Mais ne le reste qu’une heure

La fleur s’efface devant la feuille

Et l’Eden en chagrin se recueille

L’aube cède au jour cruel

L’or n’est en rien éternel.