Nocturne by Eric Tuan with Seattle Girls Choir, Prime Voci

Nocturne
by Eric Tuan
Nocturne (composed 2008) by Eric Tuan is a setting of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s poem "Tonight I can write the saddest lines." It is performed by our Chroma SSAA ensemble with the Prime Voci ensemble of Seattle Girls Choir. Recorded at Seattle First Baptist Church on March 2, 2024.
The composer writes:
“My first experience with choral music came through my involvement with the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, the Oakland-based youth choral program for which I now serve as Artistic Director. Alongside supporting my budding interests in singing, collaborative piano, and conducting, founding Artistic Director Robert Geary took a particular interest in my composing and has been a staunch advocate for my music ever since. Composed during the summer following my senior year of high school, Nocturne is a meditation on lost love through the words of poet Pablo Neruda. The poetry is taken from Neruda’s collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, written when he was nineteen years old. It remains the best-selling book of poetry in the Spanish language. Nocturne sets the opening portion of the twentieth poem, ‘Tonight I can write the saddest lines.’ The musical setting has a stream-of-consciousness quality, tracing the poet’s thoughts as they wander between memories of his lost love and the melancholy of the night sky.“
Puedo escribir
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo: “La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos.”
El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.
En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.
Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.
Oír la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.
Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.
Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Words: © Copyright by Fundación Pablo Neruda. Used by permission.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, “The night is starry and the blue stars
shiver, in the distance.”
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and at times she loved me as well.
During nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, at times I loved her as well.
How could I not love her great, still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul as dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is filled with stars and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance, someone is singing. In the distance.
Translation: © Copyright by Alice Del Simone. Used by permission.