Cold Crabs (2019)
SATB
This is a choral setting of a poem by Edward Lear that was written for Cappella Nova, who performed it as part of a workshop on 7 October 2019. Inspired in particular by Ligeti’s Nonsense Madrigals, I decided to do a setting of Lear’s ‘Cold are the Crabs’. The text, which appears to equate the futility of life to the sea and certain marine creatures, is essentially a parody of the traditional sonnet form, even cutting short the last line, and so I wanted to convey this absurdity in a madrigal that is generally slow and solemn, but also with frequent moments of sudden contrast, as well as very explicit word-painting (such as when ‘the porcupine’ is described).
This piece may be the first in a series of Lear settings for chorus which I may add to in the near future.