Three Poems (poems by Matthew Cory, music by me)

Hi everybody! I'm back with another piece of choral music! This time I took three poems by Matthew Cory (Poetictennis over at poetrycircle.com) and set them to music. I don't have as much experience with SATB as I do TTBB (since I can just record the TTBB parts myself), but now I love writing for SATB. If you know any sopranos or altos who would like to record, message me!

The piece starts with his "Cinquain":

beneath
her veil of smiles
and charms are vestiges
of vows no longer meaningful,
but missed

For this movement, I really wanted to paint the words since they were so strong. It starts with the Sopranos singing "beneath" and the altos filling in to create a feeling of looking up at the heavens. Next, I used a very thick cluster chord on the word "veil" to really make it seem as though we were passing through a veil to the word "smiles" which is somewhat resolved. The second time through those lines, I decided to change the tonality when we got to "smiles" to imply the falseness. It ends in a rather simple way.

Movement two is his "Widowers":

A sullen bluebird wails a hymn
Alone atop a white capped limb
While midst the sunlit drifts of snow,
Its mate lies hushed, interred below.

Behind the scene, I see your stone
And live your death again; I moan,
Besieged by latent misery,
Then join the songster’s elegy.

This is a simple but beautiful poem, so I wanted to write in in a simple way, almost like a very sad lullaby. The line "While midst the sunlit drifts of snow" is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen written, so I highlighted it with lush chords.

Finally, we end with his "Coronation":

At dawn, winged trumpeters present
His majesty as eyes turn east
And gaze upon his grand ascent
To heaven’s throne. A royal feast
Of scenic views illuminate
When golden scepters strafe the earth,
While evening’s minions hibernate
And morning celebrates rebirth.

In performance, there would be a pregnant pause between Widowers and Coronation. The beginning of the piece is meant to actually portray "at dawn" with a musical "painting" of a sunrise. I also use word painting with "his grand ascent" with ascending chords. I also tried to represent glowing light during the word "illuminate". Finally, I try to evoke a dreamlike sleep sound with the chord in the word "hibernate".

Thanks for listening. I'm very excited to hear your feedback!  ThreePoems.pdf

These are beautiful, really! Quite somber and atmospheric, reminding me of the better tunes of Jeremy Soule("Distant Horizons" and "Dawn" come to mind) of all things. However, I wonder whether the balacing between the voices' volumes is a bit off. For reference: In the last measures of Widowers(MM. 44-fin) and the first measures of Coronation(MM. 1 f.), I can hardly pick out the soprano, who I would expect to be the easiest to follow. Mind you, this might well have been your intention, but I am still curious whether you intended to blur the voices and how you did it(by adding reverb, I suppose)?

37 minutes ago, KStoertebeker said:

These are beautiful, really! Quite somber and atmospheric, reminding me of the better tunes of Jeremy Soule("Distant Horizons" and "Dawn" come to mind) of all things. However, I wonder whether the balacing between the voices' volumes is a bit off. For reference: In the last measures of Widowers(MM. 44-fin) and the first measures of Coronation(MM. 1 f.), I can hardly pick out the soprano, who I would expect to be the easiest to follow. Mind you, this might well have been your intention, but I am still curious whether you intended to blur the voices and how you did it(by adding reverb, I suppose)?

 

Thanks for the feedback! I'm a little limited with my current laptop and cheap DAW equipment. I will be balancing things properly when I record it with real voices. Cheers!