Urashima

A Japanese Fantasy

For solo voices, chorus and orchestra, c.20'00

“Urashima”, the poem which has been set to music by Horace Keats, is a legend translation from the Japanese.  It may be described as a narrative fantasy in a compact form; and the story told in the lines is as follows:

The narrator, who has the opening and closing passages, remembers as he walks by the sea an old story of a fisher-lad, Urashima, considered the best fisher of his village, who one day sailed his craft out beyond the farthest visible horizon.  As he looked about him, seeing nothing but the ocean and the sky, there appeared from the waves the daughter of the Sea King.  She threw an enchantment upon his mind, causing him to love her deeply; and she took him to the Immortal Isles, where they plighted their troth and lived in love.  But after a few days (as it seemed to him) had passed, he told her that he would go home to see his parents.  She did not try to keep him, but asking him whether he meant to return to her; put into his hands a small casket.  In his excitement he did not hear her tell him that if he wished to return to the Immortal Isles he must on no account open it.  Hastening home to his bewilderment he found that the village, His home, everything, had disappeared and that the grass grew over all.  So distressed was he that, hoping for some magic spell to work, he hastily opened the casket; and a small cloud, a trail of mist, drifted from it towards the Immortal Isles, and he himself, looking down, saw that he had grown old, incredibly old and shrivelled; his hair was white; his whole body was bent double with age.  In his grief he fell upon the ground and wept, and as he wept he fell asleep in death.  Urashima – pron. U-rash-im-a
Composed 1935

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• Urashima (choral rehearsal score) - sheet music

ISMN 9790720217258

$300.00 for instant PDF download (274 pages), includes A3 Conductor's Score; orchestral parts; choral rehearsal score

$20.00 for separate choral piano rehearsal / review score download 

Discount  for multiple digital choral copies under license only contact keats@wirripang.com.au