The Fury of the Aerial Bombardment

"The Fury of the Aerial Bombardment" is the third song in Ned Rorem's song cycle Aftermath, written for medium voice, violin, cello, and piano.

Date: 2002Composer: Ned RoremText: Richard EberhartSong Collection: Aftermath

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Text

The Fury of the Aerial Bombardment
by Richard Eberhart

You would think the fury of aerial bombardment
Would rouse God to relent; the infinite spaces
Are still silent. He looks on shock-pried faces.
History, even, does not know what is meant.

You would feel that after so many centuries
God would give man to repent; yet he can kill
As Cain could, but with multitudinous will,
No farther advanced than in his ancient furies

Was man made stupid to see his own stupidity?
Is God by definition indifferent, beyond us all?
Is the eternal truth man’s fighting soul
Wherein the Beast ravens in its own avidity?

Of Van Wettering I speak, and Averill,
Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in school
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl.

Recordings

Music@Menlo Live '03: Innovation / Evolution: The Unfolding of Music 1720 - 2002, Vol. 5 (Voices of Our Time)

(John Corigliano, John Harbison and Ned Rorem)

2003

Sheet Music

Aftermath

Composer(s): Ned Rorem

Song(s): 1. The Drum
2. Tygers of Wrath
3. The Fury of the Aerial Bombardment
4. The Park
5. Sonnet LXIV
6. On his Seventy-Fifth Birthday
7. Grief
8. Remorse for Any Death
9. Losses
10. Then

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