soprano and chamber orchestra (single winds & brass, perc, celesta, strings)
4 minutes
Mountain Talk
by A.R. Ammons I was going along a dusty highroad when the mountain across the way turned me to its silence: oh I said how come I don't know your massive symmetry and rest: nevertheless, said the mountain, would you want to be lodged here with a changeless prospect, risen to an unalterable view; so I went on counting my numberless fingers. |
Mountain Talk will hopefully become one song in a set of songs on Ammons poems, but for now, it is just a standalone song. I wrote it for the student orchestra readings at NEC the spring of 2016, also my final semester at Harvard. Ammons' work has been important to me since I first learned about it in Professor Peter Sacks' 20th Century American Poetry course. The same semester as that course, I wrote a string quartet inspired by his poetry (Turn).
The piece is for soprano and chamber orchestra, though the soprano should have a strong low to mid range also, since this particular song spends a good deal of time in the lower part of the soprano's range, for coloristic purposes. Instrumentation: Flute (+ Piccolo) Oboe (+ English Horn) Clarinet in Bb Bassoon French Horn in F Trumpet in C (harmon mute, cup mute, plunger) Trombone (harmon mute, cup mute, plunger) Percussion (1 player): Glockenspiel, Medium Suspended Cymbal, Crotales, Concert Bass Drum Celesta Soprano Solo Strings 9 Violin I 8 Violin II 7 Viola 6 Cello 4 Bass |