Music, when soft voices die (Philip Legge): Difference between revisions

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'''Published:''' 2010 (Joint Issue: Choral Public Domain Library, [[IMSLP:2 Partsongs, Op.7 (Legge, Philip)|Petrucci Music Library]])
'''Published:''' 2010 (Joint Issue: Choral Public Domain Library, [[IMSLP:2 Partsongs, Op.7 (Legge, Philip)|Petrucci Music Library]])


'''Description:'''  
'''Description:''' ''Music, when Soft Voices die'', mainly written in August 2009, is a grave, intricate setting of a short poem in two stanzas by the romantic poet Shelley (1792–1822). The work is written for two SATB choirs, the second of which (marked ''semplice'', or “simple”) holds long, sustained chords in the fashion of a drone, against which the voices of the first choir slowly weave dissonant and highly chromatic lines, producing dense chord clusters. The music, always specified to be quiet and calm, briefly becomes more active at the end of the first stanza as the first choir, followed by the second, seize on the phrase “within the sense they quicken”. After a short pause the second stanza begins almost at the same starting point as the first, but the exploratory chromatic harmonies of the first verse are gradually nullified, whereupon a diatonic canon takes over the first choir, during which the second choir disappears entirely. The last phrase ambiguously presents simultaneous chords of C major, B{{flat}} major and G minor against the second choirs’ anchoring D major before the last chord tilts the ensemble up to the minor instance of the initial key of E{{flat}}.


'''External websites:'''
'''External websites:'''

Revision as of 21:56, 21 October 2010

Music files

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CPDL #22478: Icon_pdf.gif Icon_snd.gif Sibelius 5
Editor: Philip Legge (submitted 2010-10-21).   Score information: A4, 5 pages, 124 kB   Copyright: CC BY NC ND 2.5 Australia
Edition notes: may also be sung as SATB with ad lib. piano accompaniment.

General Information

Title: Music, when Soft Voices die
Composer: Philip Legge
Lyricist: Percy Bysshe Shelley

Number of voices: 8vv   Voicing: SATB–SATB

Genre: SecularPartsong

Language: English
Instruments: a cappella
Published: 2010 (Joint Issue: Choral Public Domain Library, Petrucci Music Library)

Description: Music, when Soft Voices die, mainly written in August 2009, is a grave, intricate setting of a short poem in two stanzas by the romantic poet Shelley (1792–1822). The work is written for two SATB choirs, the second of which (marked semplice, or “simple”) holds long, sustained chords in the fashion of a drone, against which the voices of the first choir slowly weave dissonant and highly chromatic lines, producing dense chord clusters. The music, always specified to be quiet and calm, briefly becomes more active at the end of the first stanza as the first choir, followed by the second, seize on the phrase “within the sense they quicken”. After a short pause the second stanza begins almost at the same starting point as the first, but the exploratory chromatic harmonies of the first verse are gradually nullified, whereupon a diatonic canon takes over the first choir, during which the second choir disappears entirely. The last phrase ambiguously presents simultaneous chords of C major, B major and G minor against the second choirs’ anchoring D major before the last chord tilts the ensemble up to the minor instance of the initial key of E.

External websites:

Original text and translations

English.png English text

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap’d for the belovèd’s bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.