Fire and Ice
A setting for unaccompanied Mixed Choir (SATB)
of the poem by Robert Frost
Duration: 3'15"
Published in December 1920 in Harper's Magazine and again in 1923 in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book New Hampshire, Fire and Ice is one of Robert Frost's most popular poems. Some have asserted that the poem is a compression of Dante's Inferno. In an anecdote he recounted in 1960, prominent astronomer Harlow Shapley claimed to have inspired Fire and Ice in an encounter with Frost a year before the poem was published. Frost asked Shapley how the world will end, and Shapley responded that either the sun will explode and incinerate the Earth, or the Earth will somehow escape this fate only to end up slowly freezing in deep space.
Fire and Iceby Robert Frost Some say the world will end in fire, |
Robert Frost (1874-1963) |
Purchase Sheet Music
Sheet music for Fire and Ice is available from: J.W. Pepper
Performance History
October 24, 2023: Preview performance by the University Singers of Northeastern State University under Dr. Jeffrey Wall at the Center for Performing Arts, Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
World premiere scheduled for January 18, 2024, by the University Singers of Northeastern State University under Dr. Jeffrey Wall at the Oklahoma Music Educators Association conference, First Baptist Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma