Let All the Strains of Joy (Tagore). 2025, SATB, Premiered 18 Oct 2025 by The Crossing, Donald Nally, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, and 19 Oct, First Presbyterian Church, Germantown, Philadelphia.
Joy, the touchstone of this poem, is often misunderstood. It isn’t pleasure, happiness, or glee, but is forged in longing. It isn’t joy if it isn’t inconsolable. Joy is our great desire, joy grows by layers, and joy always carries with it the sting of beauty. Yet it is violent and disruptive. It rips meaning open. It is burningly pure.
To me, the “strains” then, rather than being just the “verses” or “melodies” of joy, glow in exertion. My setting paws the ground on “strains” for a full 34 measures before it reaches “joy.” The music then tries to keep up with Rabindranath Tagore’s rapturously descriptive language. Each voice part takes its turn leading the choir from phrase to phrase: first the tenors, then altos, sopranos, and, after a shouting unison at “shaking and waking,” the basses.
The finale, from “the open red lotus of pain,” looks to another landscape. It tries to capture what Tagore was trying to offer: the discernment, through joy, that lies beyond words. This is where peace lives. Yes, joy is often misunderstood. But there is more than understanding. There is the peace that passes understanding.
I composed Let All the Strains of Joy out of the great love and appreciation I have for Donald Nally and The Crossing. It’s humbling to realize how much time, artistry, and humanity they’ve devoted to my music over the years. This work attempts to put voice to the depth of my gratitude.
Let all the strains of joy. Gitanjali (Song Offerings) (1912), No. 58, Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)
Let all the strains of joy mingle in my last song ⎯ the joy that makes the earth flow over in the riotous excess of the grass, the joy that sets the twin brothers, life and death, dancing over the wide world, the joy that sweeps in with the tempest, shaking and waking all life with laughter, the joy that sits still with its tears on the open red lotus of pain, and the joy that throws everything it has upon the dust, and knows not a word.