Light

Light

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Scoring & Instrumentation
SATB Chorus
Alternate Title
Light: A Setting of Rabindranath Tagore's Poetry for SATB A Cappella
Year Authored (or revised)
Duration (min)
8
Movements

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Files & Media

Audio

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Video

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Sample Pages

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Detail

Description

Composer's Note:

The poem "Light" is from Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Rabindranath Tagore's most famous work. I have chosen to set Tagore's own prose translaton of the original Bengali, first published in 1913 by W.B. Yeats. The Bengali text begins "Aló amár, aló ogó, aló bhubon bhora... (light, my light, the world-fulfilling light.")

This setting of "Light" begins without words in a slow unfolding of the South Indian raga rasikapriya, one of the more unusual ragas with a raised 4th in its scale melody. The raga frames the entire work, from its opening unfurling to the imbedded harmonic structrures supporting the through-composed setting of the text. The work is dedicated to Clerestory, whose extraordinary blend of voices evoke what Tagore, as both musician and poet, perhaps meant by "heart-sweetening light!"

Comments

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First Perfomance
Commissioned by Clerestory for the 10th Anniversary San Francisco and Berkeley, 2016
Recording

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Text Language - Non English

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Text Source/Author
Gitanjali (Song Offerings) #57 Light by Rabindranath Tagore, translation published in 1917 by Macmillan.
Title Number
Ensemble Type
choral a cappella
Genre/Theme
Music by women
Non-western themes or influence
poet/author featured
Instrument
chorus mixed (SATB)
Purchase Options
PDF License & Download
PDF Price
Print & Ship
$13.50 score
Contact [email protected] for inquiries into discounts on multiple copies for performance.
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