Music for Choirs and Orchestras

FOR A DREAM'S SAKE

I. An End

III. Echo

AN END by Christina Rossetti

Love, strong as Death, is dead.
Come, let us make his bed
Among the dying flowers:
A green turf at his head;
And a stone at his feet,
Whereon we may sit
In the quiet evening hours.
He was born in the Spring,
And died before the harvesting:
On the last warm summer day
He left us; he would not stay
For Autumn twilight cold and grey.
Sit we by his grave, and sing
He is gone away.

To few chords and sad and low
Sing we so:
Be our eyes fixed on the grass
Shadow-veiled as the years pass,
While we think of all that was
In the long ago.

Mirage
Voicing: SSAA and SA soloists and piano
Text: Christina Rossetti
Ordering info: Cypress Choral Music CP 1089
Level of Difficulty: challenging with a deep and mature text
Duration: ca. 3’

MIRAGE by Christina Rossetti

The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
Was but a dream; and now I wake,
Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
For a dream's sake.

I hang my harp upon a tree,
A weeping willow in a lake;
I hang my silent harp there, wrung and snapped
For a dream's sake.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
For a dream's sake.

ECHO

ECHO by Christina Rossetti

Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago!

Voicing: SSAA and piano
Text: Christina Rossetti
Ordering info: publisher Cypress Choral Music CCM 1083
–(distributed in the USA by Musical Resources Inc.)
Level of Difficulty: Moderate
Duration: 4’

Echo is the final movement of the choral song cycle entitled For a Dream's Sake. This 12 minute cycle features three love poems by Christina Rossetti (An End, Mirage, and Echo). Each are published separately by Cypress Choral Music.

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Voicing: 1) SATB and piano 2) SSA and pno. 3) SAB and pno. 4) TTBB and pno.
Text: Joseph Simpson Cook
Publisher: Canadian International Music ; in Europe Unisong Music Publishers
Level of Difficulty: easy
Duration: 3’

SAB

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TTBB

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HARP OF WILD

Poem: Harp of Wild by Emily Bronté

Harp of wild and dream-like strain,
When I touch thy strings,
Why dost thou repeat again
Long-forgotten things?
Harp, in other, earlier days,
I could sing to thee;
And not one of all my lays
Vexed my memory.
But now, if I awake a note
That gave me joy before,
Sounds of sorrow from thee float,
Changing evermore.
Yet, still steeped in memory’s dyes,
They come sailing on,
Darkening all my summer skies,
Shutting out my sun.
--Emily Bronté

Voicing: SSA and piano
Text: Emily Bronte (1818-1848)
Ordering info: Classica Music Publishers
Level of Difficulty: Moderate
Duration: 4'30'

Harp of Wild

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Recorded on:

Elektra's Garden

Elektra Women's Choir
Morna Edmundson and Diane Loomer, Co-Conductors

Harp of Wild

To Morning

"Images of mist-covered, wind-swept moors set the backdrop for Elektra Women’s Choir’s romantic spring
journey, Harp of Wild. Allan Bevan’s sensitive musical setting, varying tempos and wide dynamic ranges combined
with Emily Brontë’s evocative poem result in the perfect composition for Elektra’s spring concert. The title catches the imagination first as the music stirs conflicted thoughts of unrequited love and springtime.
Canadian Allan Bevan’s excellent composition craft is found in the phrases, dynamics, and choices of keys all supporting and highlighting the glorious lines of Bronté’s text. The harmonic language of Harp of Wild is adventurous but not dissonant. The piece won the 2004 Association of Canadian Choral
Conductor’s Composition Competition and Elektra is looking forward to bringing it to Vancouver audiences."
-The Electrik Wire, April 2005.

Notes from Elektra's "Thirty Top Picks" by Diane Loomer.

"The text for this tender, endearing work is Emily Bronte's beautiful poem “Harp of Wild”. Written for SSAA and Piano accompaniment, Bevan sets the text above an imaginative piano accompaniment that allows the pianist to play well into the keys while at the same time convincingly evoking the sounds of a harp. This type of accompaniment gives the choir a secure and encouraging base from which to sing and yet never gets in the way of the music or the text. The harmonic language is adventurous but not dissonant. Bevan is explicit in his dynamics and precise in tempi. This provides the conductor, pianist and singers with an excellent road map from which to work, thereby allowing them to bring the primary emphasis to the text and its meaning. Excellent compositional craft is at work here with phrases, dynamics, and choices of keys all supporting and highlighting the glorious, poignant lines of Bronte's text. This piece won the 2004 Association of Canadian Choral Conductors Composition Competition. Once you sing it, you'll understand why." – DL

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Mirage
Voicing: SSAA and SA soloists and piano
Text: Christina Rossetti
Ordering info: Cypress Choral Music CP 1089
Level of Difficulty: challenging with a deep and mature text
Duration: ca. 3’

MIRAGE by Christina Rossetti

The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
Was but a dream; and now I wake,
Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
For a dream's sake.

I hang my harp upon a tree,
A weeping willow in a lake;
I hang my silent harp there, wrung and snapped
For a dream's sake.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
For a dream's sake.