Nightingale

Nightingale is a song inspired by a friend who plays the viola. In most quintet, the melody is played by the violin while the viola harmonically supports it. This short piece is written to feature the viola.

Nightingale is inspired by the poem, Ode to a Nightingale, by John Keats. These words spoke so beautifully to me. Hauntingly true about beauty, past, death and life. 

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, 

         Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, 

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet 

         Wherewith the seasonable month endows 

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 

         White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; 

                Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; 

                        And mid-May's eldest child, 

         The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, 

                The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time 

         I have been half in love with easeful Death, 

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, 

         To take into the air my quiet breath; 

                Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 

         To cease upon the midnight with no pain, 

                While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad 

                        In such an ecstasy! 

         Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— 

                   To thy high requiem become a sod. 

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! 

         No hungry generations tread thee down; 

The voice I hear this passing night was heard 

         In ancient days by emperor and clown: 

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 

         Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, 

                She stood in tears amid the alien corn; 

                        The same that oft-times hath 

         Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam 

                Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 

Read the full text by John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale

Listen to nightingale here