Hills of May

In his poetry, and much of his other writing, the English poet Robert Graves was seeking the White Goddess – his visualization of the Creative Feminine. In “The Hills of May” she is personified as a beautiful earth goddess, and the poet as the wind, her companion and lover, strolling and dancing together in the green hills. Innocence fails and disappears from our world; the beautiful young embodiment of life force disappears as whimsically as she came, leaving the poet with the ache of loss.

The musical setting is as whimsical as the poem, paralleling the variability of mood and flow of the strolling goddess of spring.

Program Note by David Maslanka