Program Note for In a Dark Time (1989)
for small chorus and chamber ensemble
In a Dark Time, possibly the best of Theodore Roethke's
mature works, is a deeply religious poem about the "dark time"
of inner conflict and doubt - the confrontation between a man and his darker
self ( his "shadow") as well as between the individual and the
world.
The moral question is so powerfully stated: "What's madness but nobility
of soul at odds with circumstance?" Images of light and dark, self
versus self, and madness versus reason play off one another. And at the
very height of agitation the image of an eclipse ("And in broad day
the midnight come again!") awakens deep, primeval fears. What frightens
him is that p; in this confusion of separate and divided selves p;
he may have no true identity. What makes him whole again is the recognition
that he is a "fallen man". To embrace this realization is to
overcome the fear of death, and the separation between mind and God is
dissolved in the mystery of interpenetration.
I first set this text in 1976-78, during my student years. I was drawn
to it again in summer of 1989 and decided to create a new setting for it
with what is, I hope, a deeper vision of the poem's meaning. Tonight's
performance is the premiere of this new setting, which bears its original
dedication to my old friend David Goodman.