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Angels' Voices (2005)

Samples
Instrumentation:SSA Choir and Orchestra (or Piano)
Genre:Choral Music

Instrumentation: 3222/4331/3Perc.+Timp./Harp/Strings

Commissioner: Gary and Mary Alice Stollak for the Michigan State University Children's Choir

Premiere: Michigan State University Children's Choir and the Lansing Symphony Orchestra, Gustav Meier, conducting, on March 19, 2005, at the Wharton Centre Great Hall, Lansing, Michigan.

Movements:

  1. The Night - William Blake (1727-1827)
  2. Angels in the Early Morning - Emily dickenson (1830-1886)
  3. Stone Walls do not a Prison Make - Richard Lovelace (1618-1658)
  4. The Infinite Meadows of Heaven - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
  5. Mary Colborne-Veel (d. 1923)

Program Note: John Burge’s Angels’ Voices, was commissioned in 2004 by Gary and Mary Alice Stollak for the Michigan State University Children’s Choir and the Lansing Symphony Orchestra.  In previous years, Mary Alice, the Music Director of this choir, had performed a number of Burge’s works and this commission was the result of conversations they had about creating a work for children’s chorus and large symphonic orchestra.   An orchestra of this size, even playing at half volume, can easily overpower a children’s chorus so it was with much care that texts dealing with the theme of “angels” were selected.   Trying to musically capture the spiritual aspect of these poems requires numerous moments of introspection and atmospheric effects, thereby helping to achieve a more manageable balance between the instruments and voices.  Also, as any parent or choral conductor will tell you, when children are at their best, it is easy to see in them an angelic manifestation of heaven on earth, although to be truthful, sometimes their best moments are spaced a bit far apart.

Angels’ Voices
is a five movement work based on the poetry of three British poets (William Blake, Richard Lovelace and Mary Colborne-Veel) and two American poets (Emily Dickinson and Henry Longfellow).   The outer movements, “Night” and “God Sendeth His Angel Sleep,” are given rather stately, hymn-like settings.  The second movement’s treatment of Dickinson’s, “Angels In The Early Morning,” flies along in a lighthearted vein with a strong emphasis on fanfare-like gestures in the brass instruments.  Longfellow’s short couplet that makes up, “The Infinite Meadows Of Heaven,” is given a vibrant and lush scoring that favours the upper woodwinds and strings with splashes of percussion colour.  The central movement, “Stone Walls Do Not A Prison Make,” is the most intensely dissonant of the movements and is characterized by a muffled drum beat throughout.  It is worth noting that Lovelace wrote this poem while in prison which gives particular poignancy to the lines, “If I have freedom in my love/And in my soul am free,/Angels alone that soar above/Enjoy such liberty.”

Interesting Observation: Angels' Voices received the Association of Canadian Choral Conductors 2006 Award for the Best New Choral Composition.  The composer did make a brass band version of the accompaniment for the Hannaford Street Silver Band and Canadian Opera Children's Chorus of Toronto, ON but this performance material is not publ

Publishing Information: This entire score is published by Santa Barbara Music Publishers in two formats, a short choral score without the piano part and the full piano and vocal score.  SBMP also handle the rental of the orchestral parts.  Additionally, Santa Barbara Music Publishers have released the second movement, "Angels in the Early Morning", as a separate novello score

Texts:

I.  The Night   -   William Blake  (1727-1827)

The sun descending in the west,
The evening star does shine;
The birds are silent in their nest,
And I must seek for mine.
The moon, like a flower,
In heaven’s high bower,
With silent delight
Sits and smiles on the night.

Farewell, green fields and happy grooves,
Where flocks have took delight.
Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves
The feet of angels bright;
Unseen they pour blessing,
And joy without ceasing,
On each bud and blossom,
And each sleeping bosom.

II.  Angels in the Early Morning   -   Emily Dickenson (1830-1886)

Angels, in the early morning
May be seen the Dews among,
Stooping—plucking—smiling—flying—
Do the Buds to them belong?

Angels, when the sun is hottest
May be seen the sands among,
Stooping—plucking—sighing—flying—
Parched the flowers they bear along.
   
III.  Stone Walls do not a Prison Make   -   Richard Lovelace (1618-1658)

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent of quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.

IV.  The Infinite Meadows of Heaven   -  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots, of angels.

V.  God Sendeth His Angel Sleep   -  Mary Colborne-Veel  (d. 1923)

God sendeth His angel, Sleep.
When the night falleth calm and deep
  The beautiful angel comes.
A glorious unseen guest,
With the fame of a deeper rest,
And the beauty of far-off things
In the hush of his angel wings.

And oft, in some vision clear,
The secret of God draws near---
    Strange meanings around us smile.
And often He charms away
The cares of a later day,
The burdening griefs and pain,
And the man is a child again.

God sendeth His angel, Sleep.
Tired hands, and the eyes that weep,
     Have ended with joy and woe.
Calmed, folded, at rest they lie;
While over them far and high
The midnight to morn is won,
The heavenly signs pass on.