Format : Octavo
SKU: LO.10-5625MD
ISBN 9780787775575.
This multi-generational arrangement of the famous Sy Miller and Jill Jackson song is crafted to beautifully incorporate a children’s choir and adults choir. The delicate opening by the children’s choir begins in unison before splitting into two easy-to-sing parts before leading into a power crescendo where the children are joined by full SATB scoring. In a suspenseful moment, the arrangement relaxes into a quiet, touching ending with a children’s solo singing the opening melody “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”.
SKU: PR.312419020
ISBN 9781491131862. UPC: 680160680474. 6.875 x 10.5 inches. English.
Commissioned by the San Francisco Choral Society and the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, Terra Nostra is a 70-minute oratorio on the relationship between our planet and humankind, how this relationship has shifted over time, and how we can re-establish a harmonious balance. Part I: Creation of the World explores various creation myths from different cultures, culminating in a joyous celebration of the beauty of our planet. Part II: The Rise of Humanity examines human achievements, particularly since the dawn of our Industrial Age, and how these achievements have impacted the planet. Part III: Searching for Balance questions how to create more awareness for our planet’s plight, re-establish a deeper connection to it, and find a balance for living within our planet’s resources. In addition to the complete oratorio, stand-alone movements for mixed chorus, and for solo voice with piano, are also available separately.Terra Nostra focuses on the relationship between our planet and mankind, how this relationship has shifted over time, and how we can re-establish a harmonious balance. The oratorio is divided into three parts:Part I: Creation of the World celebrates the birth and beauty of our planet. The oratorio begins with creation myths from India, North America, and Egypt that are integrated into the opening lines of Genesis from the Old Testament. The music surges forth from these creation stories into “God’s World” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, which describes the world in exuberant and vivid detail. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “On thine own child” praises Mother Earth for her role bringing forth all life, while Walt Whitman sings a love song to the planet in “Smile O voluptuous cool-breathed earth!” Part I ends with “A Blade of Grass” in which Whitman muses how our planet has been spinning in the heavens for a very long time.Part II: The Rise of Humanity examines the achievements of mankind, particularly since the dawn of the Industrial Age. Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall” sets an auspicious tone that mankind is on the verge of great discoveries. This is followed in short order by Charles Mackay’s “Railways 1846,” William Ernest Henley’s “A Song of Speed,” and John Gillespie Magee, Jr.’s “High Flight,” each of which celebrates a new milestone in technological achievement. In “Binsey Poplars,” Gerard Manley Hopkins takes note of the effect that these advances are having on the planet, with trees being brought down and landscapes forever changed. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “A Dirge” concludes Part II with a warning that the planet is beginning to sound a grave alarm.Part III: Searching for Balance questions how we can create more awareness for our planet’s plight, re-establish a deeper connection to it, and find a balance for living within our planet’s resources. Three texts continue the earth’s plea that ended the previous section: Lord Byron’s “Darkness” speaks of a natural disaster (a volcano) that has blotted out the sun from humanity and the panic that ensues; contemporary poet Esther Iverem’s “Earth Screaming” gives voice to the modern issues of our changing climate; and William Wordsworth’s “The World Is Too Much With Us” warns us that we are almost out of time to change our course. Contemporary/agrarian poet Wendell Berry’s “The Want of Peace” speaks to us at the climax of the oratorio, reminding us that we can find harmony with the planet if we choose to live more simply, and to recall that we ourselves came from the earth. Two Walt Whitman texts (“A Child said, What is the grass?” and “There was a child went forth every day”) echo Berry’s thoughts, reminding us that we are of the earth, as is everything that we see on our planet. The oratorio concludes with a reprise of Whitman’s “A Blade of Grass” from Part I, this time interspersed with an additional Whitman text that sublimely states, “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love…”My hope in writing this oratorio is to invite audience members to consider how we interact with our planet, and what we can each personally do to keep the planet going for future generations. We are the only stewards Earth has; what can we each do to leave her in better shape than we found her?
SKU: CA.928200
ISBN 9790007300869. Key: C minor / c major. French. Text: Baudelaire, Charles.
Sounds, colors and scents can conjure up places of longing. During the Romantic period, the desire to travel and see other places was seen as an expression of some inner state of mind. In L'invitation au voyage, the boundaries between what is real and imaginary seem to dissolve in the lyrical perception of a journey to the inner self: There we find nothing but order and beauty, splendor, peace, and delight”. This is unattainable perfection as a place of longing, where we are freed from all earthly cares. A never-ending sixteenth-note figure in the piano accompaniment flickers like a shimmering veil over these words, which in their poetry seem to remove us far from our earthly existence. “The world falls asleep in a warm light!This art song was originally composed not for chamber choir, but for solo voice and piano. Denis Rouger has carefully adapted it to suit the requirements and expressive possibilities offered by a larger ensemble, without losing any of the qualities of the original. Each part in the choir has a melodic line drawn from the harmonic and rhythmic framework. In the process, the variety and refinement of the choral language combines with an enormous flexibility in form and expression, as French melodies or German art songs demand from a soloist and pianist.The songs have been recorded by the figure humaine chamber choir on the CD ... wo die Zitronen blühn (Carus 83.514).
