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- A -

 

Alchemy 

BBP|  $4.10  | SATB with divisi in four movements  |  a cappella | YouTube link is HERE

 

Just as the ancient practice of alchemy endeavored to turn dross into gold, this set of Teasdale poems traces through its four movements a series of poetic and musical transformations along life's journey: grief turns into gold, impermanence and the fear of loss transform into love, a sheen of iridescence is conveyed to us by our lovers, and finally, the ultimate transformation occurs when we pursue the path that beauty unfolds for us. The meter and rhythm are derived from speech. This piece contains many instances of jazz-based harmonies, which results in a colorful harmonic palette. 

Alchemy is a popular piece, especially with university ensembles and skilled community choruses. For a review of this work, which was featured as a noteworthy piece in a Chorus America column, click or tap HERE. 

 

Alchemy was selected for inclusion in the prestigious PROJECT : ENCORE catalog of contemporary choral works. For more information, click or tap the following links:

 

• PROJECT : ENCORE website

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Following is a description that is published in the October 2017 ACDA Choral Journal publication, page 75.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arcturus in Autumn

Movement 6 from Stars forever, while we sleep 

BBP | $2.90 |SATB |  a cappella | YouTube link is HERE

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This piece explores Sara Teasdale's autumnal mood as she examines the heavens and laments how the star Arcturus, "bringer of spring," leaves the autumn skies so as not to bear witness to the withering of days. This mostly homophonic piece features harmonies alternately stark and rich that foretell the lengthening nights of autumn into winter. 

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Awakening

BBP  |  $3.80 |  SATB with divisi in three movements with tenor soloist in movement II  | a cappella  |  YouTube link is HERE

 

Awakening is complex harmonically although basically tonal and features a tenor solo in the second movement. The focus of the first movement is the joy that comes from finding a kindred soul in a “wilderness of hostile smiles.” The second movement is a rapturous memory from youth of a night spent in a glade, witness to magical elements of nature, a glowing magenta sunset, the mysteries of night, and, finally, fragrant dawn. In the third movement, the poem expresses hopes and desires for a night together that may last a lifetime but which in any case concludes with the image of a restful place among the leaves and grasses. Robin McNeil, reviewer for Opus Colorado, had this to say about a performance of Awakening: “...one of the high points of this concert for me at least was a composition written in 2007 by Donald Skirvin entitled Awakening … which is a startlingly beautiful piece that is incredibly complex harmonically. It is in three movements and has a tenor solo in the second movement which was sung by Maestro Banks (Ed. note: the conductor of The Esoterics) as he conducted. Again Banks many skills were displayed. He didn’t just sing. He is outstanding. But I hasten to add that he was surely motivated by this beautiful piece of music written by Donald Skirvin.”

- C -

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Canticles of Crimson

JWP  ($3.80) | SATB in five movements with soprano soloist and piano |  YouTube link is HERE

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Canticles of Crimson sets six poems written by Carl Sandburg. The work's five movements present Sandburg’s recollections and imaginings about love (requited and unrequited), life cycles (spring through winter and the beginning of life to its end), memories, loss, and, perhaps, reconciliation if not redemption. In short, the human condition. These poems have certain commonalities and resonances that led me to select them for this work. For example, aspects of love are themes common to three poems, which begin and end the work. Structurally, the chorus is featured in two movements and the soprano soloist joins the chorus in three movements. The work runs approximately 20 minutes.

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Clear Evening

Movement 2 from Stars forever, while we sleep

BBP |  $2.90 |  SATB divisi |  a cappella | YouTube link is HERE

 

This movement explores Sara Teasdale's autumnal mood as she gazes into a summer's eve filled with fireflies and the scents of apple, dewy pine, and rose. The evocative atmosphere takes the chorus and audience through moods and emotions that finally resolve in spoken words, "fall asleep, fall asleep," as the singers conclude this quiet, reflective work.

 

Curve of Gold

BBP | $4.10 |SATB in four movements with soprano soloist and piano | YouTube link is HERE

 

This piece is a meditation on love's journey as we seek, find, and sometimes lose our way. The musical language is modern but tonal with rich chordal underpinnings and features a robust piano part. This setting of Sara Teasdale poems explores love's journey through four vignettes. The set opens with the tale of ephemeral love that compares the eternal cycles of the moon to the brevity of love itself. The second movement expresses how another's love transforms our common experience and sets the shared surroundings "delicately alight." The third movement contemplates love's loss, and the memories of kinder times. The final movement describes how we can carry love as a beacon, a lamp, through the darkness as life reaches its journey's end. 

 

- D -

 

Dona eis requiem

SELF | $3.00 |  SA or treble voices, TB, and SAB with piano  | settings of three sections from the requiem mass: Pie Jesu, Agnus Dei, and Lux Aeterna | sound files are available on the publisher web pages

 

Suitable for concert or service use. A modern setting, tonal, and very accessible for singers and audience or congregation.

 

- E -

 

Echoes from the Heart

SELF | Contact composer for price |SATB double chorus in three movements with some divisi | a cappella | YouTube Link to second movement is HERE

 

The three movements of this piece represent three temporal stages: departure, arrival, and return. The first movement—Ancient roses—represents a time portal that moves us through time and memory into a Proustian past. The dream sequence of the middle movement—Longing, dreaming—explores who the dreamer is and what the dream might be. In the third movement—I remember—the shifting rhythms of the antiphony emphasize subtle changes of meaning in the same phrase. The titles of each movement are incorporated into the poems to heighten the sense of remembrance. The author's poems are rather like haiku that, in a few words, can crystallize a feeling or a thought for all time.

 

- F -

 

Fear No More

BBP |  $3.20 |SATB |  a cappella | YouTube link is HERE

 

The text for this piece is taken from a threnody (a song sung in memory of the dead) whose first line is, “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,” text that is taken from Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline. The text lays out the argument against mourning and provides an elegiac injunction not to fear death but instead to find consolation in death’s “quiet consummation.” While the play itself is not often performed, the lines I have set have also inspired other composers, notably Gerald Finzi, and other English composers such as Robert Quilter and Ian Higginson to create art songs. The American composer Stephen Sondheim set two of the four stanzas as a solo for the character of William Shakespeare in his musical The Frogs. In this play, the character of Dionysus wants to hear Shakespeare speak of a young man's feelings about death. And his response is the song "Fear No More."

 

In this choral setting, I have followed the structure of the poem (four stanzas of six lines each) and created four sections, all of which begin a treatment of the words, “Fear no more,” that employs different voicings and registers and which is followed by thematic variations on some common elements. The final stanza is a renunciation of exorcisers, witchcraft, ghosts, and anything ill that could trouble the grave. This last segment uses new, dramatic material, and it begins and ends with a treatment of the words, “Fear no more,” which is set using an irregular time signature of 7/4 so that the rhythmic pulse becomes a temporal and spacious. 

 

 

The fleeting world

Movement 3 from Songs of Enlightenment

BBP |  $2.90 | SATB |  a cappella | YouTube link is HERE

 

Quiet, meditative final movement of "Songs of Enlightenment," a three-movement work of Buddhist texts and Buddhist-themed poetry. Rich harmonies and striking poetic imagery make this a memorable concert piece. The text focuses on the concept of impermanence, beginning with verses from the Buddhist scripture, The Diamond Sutra, and concluding with a setting of a poem titled "Impermanence" by the late poet, Gordon E. Abshire. The final lines are: "Cold sunset, colder river / Leaves tumble in the meadow / This season comes too soon / Night settles quickly, gently.
 

Fontainebleau

Movement 5 from Stars forever, while we sleep

BBP  |  $2.90 | SATB divisi |  a cappella | YouTube link is HERE

 

This piece explores Sara Teasdale's autumnal mood as she contemplates French palaces and the memory of "ladies lovely and immoral" who "glide down the gilded stairs." At the end of the work, an autumn garden from centuries past is imagined along with the ghostly kings and hunters who roam through "four centuries of autumns, four centuries of leaves" as pentatonic melodies intertwine. 

 

the fountain

from Choral Nocturnes

SELF |  Contact composer for price | SATB |  a cappella | YouTube link is HERE

 

The poem expresses the musical voice of the poet who sings of love but whose audience is a "satyr carved in stone," drowsy marble peacocks, and a heedless "great white moon." 

 

- G -

 

The Giver of Stars

BBP |  $2.90 | SATB and piano |  YouTube link is HERE

 

Setting of Amy Lowell poem of the same name that describes the rapture that derives from association with overwhelming beauty either in the abstract or, perhaps, in the joy that a personal relationship can bring.  Good secular piece for community or university choruses.

 

- H -

 

Hymn to the Moon

JWP |  $2.00 | SSATBB | a cappella | YouTube link is HERE

 

A rich and melodic setting of a text from the Greek poet Homer as translated by Percy Bysshe Shelley. This six-part setting contains many instances of divisi resulting in a lush choral "moonscape." The ending evokes a lunar temple in which chants are offered to the Queen of the Night Sky.

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​- L -

 

Lord, it is night

 

BBP | $2.60 | TTBB or SATB  | YouTube link to TTBB version is HERE

 

A meditative prayer for the night in its stillness, complexity, and depth. Scored for either TTBB or SATB (occasional five- and six-part divisi), includes a cappella sections interspersed with single-line, bass organ accompaniment. Can be effective in a service context whose theme is evening prayer but may also be used in a concert setting. Mostly quiet writing except for the setting of the words, "The night heralds the dawn. Let us look expectantly to a new day, new joys, new possibilities" where the chorus reaches a crescendo supported by the organ. Non-denominational, suitable for most religious settings.

 

- O -

 

Only the heart will hear (See Winter Dances)

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- P -

 

Places, like music

SELF | Contact composer for price | SSAATTBB |   a cappella |  YouTube link is HERE

 

Sara Teasdale’s poem, Places, begins: “Places I love come back to me like music . . .” What follows is a catalog of the places and experiences of significance to the author. In setting this poem, I have used a through composed technique to provide a musical setting that varies by place and experience. For example, the final musical memory describes an ocean voyage, swelling waves, deep voices calling from the depths, and eerie phosphorescence. To capture this experience, the music creates waveforms in the lower voices while the sopranos float above the waters and carry the story to its conclusion.

 

- S -

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Sandburg Songs

SELF |  Contact  composer for prices | SATB and SSAATTBB in three movements| Scored for chorus, string orchestra, and piano

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Carl Sandburg once wrote that “Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.” Although I have always found his poems to be forthright and compelling, deeper meanings, additional echoes arise out of the shadows and naturally emerge upon reflection. And, of course, not everyone hears the same echoes or sees the same images through the shadows. In the case of the four poems I selected for this work, they immediately spoke to me and coalesced in a fusion of love’s warmth, transcendent longing, and the persistence of memory beyond even death itself. Your interpretations may vary, of course, but those were some of the concepts and emotions that I worked with in writing this piece. In the composition process, I strove to underpin the meaning of the text in the music itself in which certain choices as to structure and harmonies, melodies, rhythms, and so on, related directly to my personal interpretation of the text.

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HERE  is a YouTube link to the complete work.

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Following are links to the individual movements:

1. You Remember

2. Some I Keep

3. A Face I Know

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The Ships of Yule

JWP | $2.00 | SATB and SAB (SSA, SA, TB, and TTBB also available) |  sound files are available on the publisher web pages

 

This setting of Bliss Carman's poem, "The Ships of Yule," is lively and rhythmic and contains elements of a traditional sea chantey. The music is tonal with lots of harmonic color and forays into related keys. The poem refers to Yule, and so the piece is appropriate for Christmas or winter celebrations. 
 

Sometimes, for eternity

BBP | $2.90 | SATB and violin | YouTube link is HERE

 

This work is an ode to those whose lives were well-lived in music. The setting is direct and accessible, employs rich harmonies, and is constructed with careful voice leading. The piece ends with the lyric "Each dawn: A song sparrow; On my headstone Trilling lux aeterna. Not for me; But not minding If I'd listen Sometimes For eternity." 

 

Songs of Enlightenment

SELF (and BBP, third movement only: The Fleeting World) | SATB with divisi in three movements | a cappella |YouTube link to the third movement, The Fleeting World, is  HERE​

 

The first movement (I Take Refuge) is scored for chorus and handbells (or hand chimes) and sets several traditional Buddhist texts in both original languages (Pali and Sanskrit) and English. It concludes with an optional invitation for the audience to chant "OM" while the chorus sings. The second movement (Verses and Mantras of Compassion) sets various scriptures and mantras, some in the original languages (Japanese and Tibetan) as well as in translation to English. The third movement, The Fleeting World, opens with a quotation in English from the Diamond Sutra and continues with a setting of a poem that explores the impermanence of life in modern terms and striking imagery borrowed from a close observation of natural processes. The first two movements are undergoing revision.

 

Songs of the Equinox and Solstice

SELF | Contact composer for price | SATB in four movements | a cappella |YouTube link to Fall Equinox: The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee is HERE​

 

The four movements of this work describe the four seasons associated with the equinox and solstice: Spring equinox: New world; Summer solstice: Wheel of dreams; Autumn equinox: The delight song of Tsoai-talee; Winter solstice: Cedar smoke and snowflake. The first three are settings of M. Scott Momaday poems and the fourth is a setting of a poem by Gerald Hausman. May be performed as a set or as individually programmed works.

 

Stars forever, while we sleep

SELF |Contact composer for price | Some individual movements, which are listed separately in this alphabetical list, are available through JWP and SMP | Nine-movement a cappella work in various vocal configurations, including SATB, double-chorus, and triple-chorus movements, with an optional solo quartet in three performance versions are available from the composer: the original nine-movement version, a six-movement version, and a five-movement version |YouTube recordings are available for all separate movements; a YouTube link to the six-movement version is  HERE​

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...stars to hold

JWP |  $2.75 | SATB with divisi and SSATBB five-movement work that includes three soloists (Soprano, Alto, Baritone)  | a cappella | YouTube link is HERE

 

The piece sets the poetry of Sara Teasdale that all reference the stars above and use these celestial bodies to explore the human condition. The first movement is SATB divisi, the second through fourth movements are SSATBB plus soloist, and the fifth movement joins the soloists into a trio that sings antiphonally with the SATB divisi chorus. 

 

- T -

 

There will come soft rains

BBP | $2.60 |  SATB divisi | a cappella |  YouTube link is HERE

 

There will come soft rains is from one of Teasdale's last collections of poems, Flame and Shadow. In this collection, especially in section VIII (which contains five other anti-war poems) Teasdale lamented her country's entry into World War I, and her lyric poetry became tinged with foreboding and resignation.  The music setting attempts to bring the contemplative nature of this poem to the foreground. It has frequent instances of 8-part harmony and is basically tonal.

 

There will come soft rains is featured in the June/July 2017 edition of the ACDA Choral Journal, page 79, as part of the PROJECT : ENCORE article.

Following is a description that was published in the journal:

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"Stunning setting for choirs with secure singers (some minimal 3-part divisi). Very tonal and beautifully melodic, with close (sometimes surprising) harmonic clusters. Many programming applications for this timeless text. Worth the work! 

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For more information, PROJECT : ENCORE

 

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- W -

 

Weathered Days

BBP |  $2.90 | SATB | a cappella | A link to the performance is HERE

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The settings of these five haiku-like poems form a narrative in which the first three poems are tinged with melancholy as leaves are torn from branches, memories languish, and plum blossoms offer fragrance even to the one who breaks the branch. But in the final two poems, the piece turns toward dawn and shimmering light, and the dark night passes. Rich timbres underline the spare lines of poetry. The compositional style shifts between homophonic and polyphonic passages throughout the piece.

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When All Falls Silent

BBP |  $2.90 | SATB | a cappella | The premiere performance by Utah Chamber Artists is available HERE.

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This unaccompanied work is harmonically rich and written with frequent divisi. Homophony predominates along with instances of antiphonal writing between men’s and women’s voices. Performance time is about 4:45 m:s.

In setting Charles Anthony Silvestri’s contemplative When All Falls Silent, I envisioned a journey through a sound world that would embrace singers and listeners alike with warmth, depth, and peace. I began to compose this work in 2020 when the silence and isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic were pervasive. It was a solace to spend time with the text and work with its imagery, finding and then following the musical thread that linked calling and listening and that opened a clear path through stresses and struggles, finally revising and completing the work in early 2022. Now as then, tensions and struggles still prevail. But for a few moments, perhaps this fusion of words, sounds, and silences can allay our anxieties and allow us to find peace and harmony within our hearts and our lives.

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Winter Dances (Formerly Only the heart will hear)

BBP | $3.20 | SSA/TBB with piano or orchestral accompaniment | YouTube link to piano versions is HERE; orchestra version is HERE

 

This work is an evocation of the winter season. It begins with a sprightly tune that segues into a richly harmonic middle section that then returns to the up-tempo melodies that began the piece. The composition uses six-part harmony (SSA/TBB) forming a double chorus of female and male voices who often sing antiphonally. The accompaniment is either orchestral or a reduction for piano of the orchestral scoring. The work was originally titled "Only the heart will hear."

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Winter Scenes

SELF | Contact composer for price | eight-part mixed chorus in four movements with string orchestra and piano | YouTube links to each movement are listed below:

 

• Winter Scenes - Prelude and I. Shuddering Stars

• Winter Scenes - II. Unfaltering Fire

• Winter Scenes - III. Strange Twilight

• Winter Scenes - IV. Dusky Gold

 

This work is a four-movement setting of Bliss Carman's poem, The Winter Scene. Recently, this work was accepted into the Project:Encore catalog of modern choral works. The reviewers said that the "Four parts (I.SATB; II.SSAA; III.TTBB; IV.SATB) (are) each a particular description of winter's physical and emotional state—timelessness, beauty, stillness, tranquility. Stunning choral and orchestral writing that makes full use of resources. A significant setting to anchor a winter/solstice concert. University level."

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Wintertide

BBP | $5.80 | double chorus (SATB with SSAA) and string orchestra and piano in three movements | YouTube links to each movement are listed below:

 

• Wintertide - I. When Winter Comes

• Wintertide - II. Crown Winter with Green

• Wintertide - III. Dreams of Gold

 

Wintertide explores the temporal, physical, and emotional landscape of winter, its frosty scenes, rollicking celebrations, and languorous loving to while away the season's long, dark nights. To accomplish this, the composer has selected texts as chronologically diverse as quatrains by the Latin poet Horace; a sixteenth-century poem by the Englishman, Thomas Campion; lines from Longfellow's poem, Woods in Winter; and a meditation on the winter season penned by the Canadian poet, Carman Bliss, along with other fragments of poems.

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Wisdom 

Movement 8 from Stars forever, while we sleep

JWP |  $2.00 | SATB |  a cappella | YouTube link is HERE

 

This piece explores Sara Teasdale's somewhat ironic observation that "What we have never had remains; It is the things we have that go." She makes this observation in the context of an early spring night when winter is scarcely over. The piece is mostly homophonic and uses echoic phrases. The sprightly tempo somewhat belies the ironic text. 

 

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