"Oh, But Everyone Was a Bird" is a re-imagining of a choral setting of Siegfried Sassoon’s poem, "Everyone Sang." This original version was for a solo soprano, solo violin and chorus. Choosing texts always presents me with a problem, I love great poems and prose, but I despise sifting through the mountains of great, good, bad and very bad works to find something that compels me to write. However, I often know the subject that then attracts me to write for voice. As it happened I learned from a friend, who is a librarian, that there are books that organize poems by subject and offered to search out some possibilities for me. She found this wonderful poem by Siegfried Sassoon. It immediately inspired me.  I must admit that I am not an opponent of text painting and in this case the phrase, and the song was wordless provided the initial inspiration for the piece—the choir sings in the style of a vocalise and a solo soprano gives the text. Because Sassoon was British, I chose to allude to Ralph Vaughn Williams’ "Lark Ascending" with a solo violin representing the bird in the poem. With these two decisions, the piece naturally unfolded and was a joy to write.

Also natural is for a piece for string orchestra to be born from this same “nest” since strings are the closest instrumental relation to the voice.  The new freedoms of range and sustaining ability had to be balanced and reworked without any of Sassoon’s text as a guide for the listener.

Oh, But Everyone Was a Bird

Philip Wharton