The Eclipse

Voicing: SATB unaccompanied
Text: Henry Vaughan (1622-1695)
Unpublished: please contact the composer

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Notes: Awarded first prize in the 2000 Austin (TX) Pro Chorus Choral Composition Competition. This work was composed in 2000 and is the first of three pieces I composed on the poetry of Welsh metaphysical poet, Henry Vaughan.  It was composed in 2000 and revised in 2020. Some choirs that have performed this work include the Vancouver Chamber Choir, Da Capo Chamber Choir, Musikay, I Coristi, and the U. Alberta Madrigal Singers, and, most recently, on Good Friday 2022 by Pro Coro.

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Whither, O whither did’st thou fly
When I did grieve thine holy Eye?
When thou did’st mourn to see me lost,
And all thy Care and Councels crost.
O do not grieve where e’er thou art!
Thy grief is an undoing smart.
Which doth not only pain, but break
My heart, and makes me blush to speak.
Thy anger I could kiss, and will:
But (O!) thy grief, thy grief doth kill.                                                                                                  
Henry Vaughan (1622-1695)
From Thalia Rediviva, 1678

Performed by: The University of Alberta Madrigal Singers, Dr. Leonard Ratzlaff, conductor; recorded on, My Soul There is a Country. (2001)

Performed by: I Coristi Chamber Choir, Dr. Debra Cairns, conductor; recorded on, Songs of the Soul, 2008

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