''Elegiac Ode'', Op. 21, is a musical composition by British composer

Charles Villiers Stanford Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Anglo-Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Romantic era. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was educated at the ...

(1852–1924) written and first performed in 1884. It is a four-movement work scored for baritone and soprano soloists, chorus and orchestra,Town, Stephen, "'Full of fresh thoughts'’: Vaughan Williams, Whitman, and the Genesis of ''A Sea Symphony''", in Adams, Byron, and Wells, Robin (editors), ''Vaughan Williams Essays'', (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2003), 73-102, at 78. Stanford's composition is a setting of

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...

s 1865 elegy, "

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a long poem written by American poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892) as an elegy to President Abraham Lincoln. It was written in the summer of 1865 during a period of profound national mourning in the af ...

", mourning the death of American president

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

.Sullivan, Jack. ''New World Symphonies: How American Culture Changed European Music'', 95ff. According to musicologist Jack Sullivan, Stanford's ''Elegiac Ode'' likely had reached a wider audience during Whitman's lifetime than his poems.

References

{{When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd 1884 compositions Compositions by Charles Villiers Stanford Musical settings of poems by Walt Whitman

See also

References