Music, when soft voices die - Philip Legge

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"''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 successive chords of C major, B{{flat"

⌛ Period → Contemporary ◈ Genre / Form → Partsongs

♯ Key C minor

⁄ Time Signature 4/4

♬ Voicing → SSAATTBB

↕ Range E-2 – G#5

¶ Language → English

Measures 73

Texture mixed texture

Parts 10

Instruments SSAATTBB, 2 Pianos

Pages 5

CPDL # 22478

Editor Philip Legge

Posted 2010-10-21

♫Pitch Ranges

Soprano

E-4 – G#5

Alto

A-3 – D#5

Tenor

B2 – A-4

Bass

E-2 – B-3

Soprano semplice

C4 – A4

Alto semplice

G3 – F#4

Tenor semplice

D3 – D4

Bass semplice

G2 – C4

Piano* (ad lib)

G2 – C#4