The Arrow and The Song 

SATB and piano

When I agreed to take on a commission for Waukee Middle School Sixth Grade Choir (Shelly Schaeufele, conductor), I was apprehensive at first. How could I adapt my own compositional voice to write something accessible enough for middle school students to sing? I thought about it for a long time and eventually decided that I would have to prove myself as a composer and call upon all my knowledge about writing “good” and “interesting” music in order to create something that I would be satisfied with. So, I found a big, flashy poem and decided to write something to match it. Unfortunately for me, a bad case of writer’s block set in and I was left stranded with an approaching deadline.

It was a few weeks later that I heard Longfellow’s The Arrow and The Song (in a choral rehearsal, oddly enough).  Right away, I was struck by one thing—its simplicity.  I immediately got my hands on a copy of the text and wrote the entire piece in three days.   Overall, the text portrays something about music and the strength of friendship—a simple, beautiful message for a simple song whose composer learned an important lesson about not thinking too hard, trusting yourself, and just keeping it simple.

The Arrow and The Song received its premiere on November 18, 2002 and is dedicated with love and gratitude to Erik Hoefer. The SATB version was commissioned by the White Bear Lake High School Varsity Choir (Melanie Kjellberg, conductor).

The Text

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.