Sea Drift is among the larger-scale musical works by the composer Frederick Delius. Completed in 1903-1904 and first performed in 1906, it is a setting for baritone, chorus and orchestra of words by Walt Whitman.
Sea Drift takes its name from a section of Walt Whitman's poetical compilation Leaves of Grass, Sea-Drift, which contains several poems about the sea or the shore. The text is drawn from the poem Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, thou...
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Sea Drift is among the larger-scale musical works by the composer Frederick Delius. Completed in 1903-1904 and first performed in 1906, it is a setting for baritone, chorus and orchestra of words by Walt Whitman.
Sea Drift takes its name from a section of Walt Whitman's poetical compilation Leaves of Grass, Sea-Drift, which contains several poems about the sea or the shore. The text is drawn from the poem Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, though it does not use the full text. In the poem, the speaker describes how, as a boy, he watched a pair of seagulls nesting, until one day the she-bird flew away and never returned. In a long section usually printed in italics, the he-bird, unable to leave in case his mate should return and find him gone, waits forever and calls his sorrowful song to the moon, the stars and the sea, which are heavy and drooping with his lost love.
The text employed by Delius closes with the gull's apostrophe, 'translated' by the boy, who seems to understand it,...
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