And Still the Steeples Hum

For the last nine months, I have had a certain fixation with A. E. Housman’s “Bredon Hill,” as well as Ralph Vaughan Williams’s setting of it. The poem draws an analogy between church bells ringing on Bredon Hill and the narrator’s loss of a lover. The connection between the bells and the narrator’s memories of this lover is utterly inextricable: their hoped wedding is symbolized, as well as the lover’s sudden death, and funeral. The bells are at once a source of fond memory, and of bitter torment.

In “And Still the Steeples Hum,” I write somewhat in response to Houseman and Vaughan Williams. Similarly to Vaughan Williams, this piece is cyclical: similarly to Vaughan Williams, this piece derives much of its textural language from an onomatopoeic treatment of the bells. My primary clarinet theme, furthermore, pays direct homage to the soloist’s main melody in Vaughan Williams’s setting: however it is presented with greater hesitation, and with the clangor of the bells in the background. If Vaughan Williams’s “Bredon Hill” is a straightforward emotional release, “And Still the Steeples Hum” is a panic attack.

“And Still the Steeples Hum” was written for Unheard-Of Ensemble, who premiered and recorded the work on November 14th, 2025 in Oberlin, Ohio.