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| James
Wierzbicki / recent works |
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| These three short pieces for a cappella SATB choir were composed in the spring of
1997
in advance of the dedication of a new windowed wall at St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle. |
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| Let There Be Light |
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The text consists of the familiar opening lines of the Book of Genesis:
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In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth.
And the earth was without form, and void:
and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good. |
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Most of the text-setting is straightforward, but at the same time -- in
a representation of images of "void," "darkness," the deep," etc.
--most of it is underscored by various sections of the choir singing a sustained
vocalise on neutral syllables.
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| Chartres |
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This homage to the magnificent stained glass at the Chartres Cathedral in
France uses as its text the 1893 poem by Edith Wharton.
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Immense, august, like some Titanic bloom,
The mighty choir unfolds its lithic core,
Petalled with panes of azure, gules and or,
Splendidly lambent in the Gothic gloom,
And stamened with keen flamelets that illume
The pale high-altar. On the prayer-worn floor,
By worshippers innumerous thronged of yore,
A few brown crones, familiars of the tomb,
The stranded driftwood of Faith's ebbing sea --
For these alone the finials fret the skies,
The topmost bosses shake their blossoms free,
While from the triple portals, with grave eyes,
Tranquil, and fixed upon eternity,
The cloud of witnesses still testifies. |
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In spite of the reference to the choir's "lithic core," most
of the music is subdued, inspired more by the poetry's floral references and bittersweet
allusions to an aging congregation than by the mighty architecture that supports Chartres'
famous rose window. As the piece builds toward its final climax, the soprano and alto
parts feature tight clusters of divisi notes.
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| The Windowes |
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The text is a poem (from ca. 1630) by the English mystical poet George
Herbert.
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Lord, how can Man preach they eternal
word?
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He is a brittle crazy glasse: |
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Yet in thy Temple thou dost him afford |
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This glorious and transcendent place,
To be a window through thy grace. |
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| But when thou dost anneale in glasse thy story, |
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Making thy life to shine within |
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The holy Preachers; then the light and glory |
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More reverend grows, and more doth win:
Which els shows watrish bleake, and thin. |
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| Doctrine and life, colours and light, in one |
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When they combine and mingle, bring |
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A strong regard and awe: but speech alone |
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Doth vanish like a flaring thing,
And in the eare, not conscience ring. |
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Like the poetry, its quiet and largely syllabic setting is a meditation
on the fragile, glass-like nature of humankind.
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| James Wierzbicki can be
reached by |
- e-mail at jwierz@sbcglobal.net
- telephone at (949) 823-0159
- mail at 62 Harvey Court, Irvine,
CA 92612
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| Return to James
Wierzbicki's home page |
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