John Muir suite - Bird, Peter

📄

Preview not generated yet

Loading player...

"A suite of 4 short pieces (2:30 each) in Renaissance styles, setting 4 well-known quotes from the prose of John Muir. The suite portrays one fine day in the mountains."

⌛ Period → Renaissance ◈ Genre → Cantatas

♯ Key G major

⁄ Time Signature 4/4

♬ Voicing → SATB

◆ Difficulty

Intermediate

↕ Range D2 – B6

♩ Tempo 100

◷ Duration ~8 min 59 sec

¶ Language → English

Measures 203

Texture mixed texture

Parts 6

Instruments violin and flute [or equivalent organ stops]

Pages 20

CPDL # 10209

Editor Peter Bird

Posted 2005-11-20

License Personal

♫Pitch Ranges

SOPRANO

A#3 – A5

ALTO

G3 – D5

TENOR

C3 – E5

BASS

D2 – A4

Flute

C4 – B6

Violin

G3 – B5

¶Lyrics / Text

I. ''N'ascensione madregala:'' Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. II. ''Nature her galliard:'' Everything is flowing--going somewhere. Snow flows fast or slow in grand beauty; the air in majestic floods of fragrance. Rocks flow from volcanoes like water from springs; animals flock together and flow in currents, while the stars go streaming through space. Everything is flowing--going somewhere. How lavish is Nature; Nature always building, Nature always pulling down, creating, destroying, chasing every material particle from form to form, ever changing, ever beautiful. [N.B. This passage was condensed considerably for grace in singing. The original quotations may be found on the last page of the .pdf file.] III. ''Vespers:'' The evening flames with purple and gold. The mighty host of trees, baptized in the purple flood, stand hushed and thoughtful, awaiting the sun\'s blessing and farewell. IV. ''Grand canon:'' This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. ''John Muir''