Daniel Elder - "The Yellow Wood"
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Music Copyright ©2023 Daniel Elder
Recording Copyright ℗©2024 Rondeau Production GmbH
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Recorded by Neuer Kammerchor Berlin, Adrian Emans, conductor
The Road Not Taken muses wistfully on the concept of "what could have been." The series of decisions every person undertakes forges a unique winding road paved of opportunity and consequence, and many have long been enraptured staring at the sprawling webs left behind them. In The Yellow Wood Robert Frost's poem is set with great care to highlight his subject's emotional journey along this road. With that in mind, the musical setting harnesses three concepts to define the narrator: I could (an inquiry), I would (an intent), and I should (an action, also occuring as I shall). Intriguingly, Frost has already included these words chronologically in the lines "And sorry I could not travel both" and "I doubted if I should ever come back / I shall be telling this with a sigh," and finally to highlight Frost's focus on his subject's chosen actions, "I would" is birthed from a homonym with the word "wood." In this way the physical setting and the emotional setting are intimately linked. The "yellow wood" is therefore its own symbol of the narrator's choices.
Musically, The Yellow Wood is set in a modal key that flits between two different tonal areas, evoking the uncertainty borne of decision-making. Some notes anchor the view forward while some seem to turn to the view behind. Only at one point—the climax of the work—does the music fall fully into a stable key. At this moment, the narrator surrenders his whole heart to the anguish of separation as one road is left behind ("Oh, I kept the first for another day"). Here lies another bit of artistic license, as the word "ever" begins to morph into the word "never," representing the narrator's somber recognition that, despite asking himself "I wonder if I should ever come back," he seems to know the answer.
Ultimately, The Road Not Taken may stake the claim that "the road less traveled by" was the right decision to make ("And that has made all the difference") but The Yellow Wood focuses on Frost's decision to title his poem in reference to the rearward view. There is something poignant about imagining what could have been. The decisions we make in our lifetime utterly define us. To fixate on roads untraveled is to conjur an infinite array of alternate versions of oneself. And this—the very fact that we have no idea exactly where our lives will take us—is the single greatest adventure.