Vocal Composition of the Day, Installment 3:
"Twilight, Goodbye, Peace"
for
Low Voice, Low Flutes (Alto and Bass), and Piano
(2016, 6:41)
2016 PROGRAM NOTES
"Twilight, Goodbye, Peace" is dedicated to low flutes virtuoso Peter Sheridan. It was begun in 2013 and completed in 2016; the total duration is 6:41. The texts by Solomon Ibn Gabriol, Samuel L. Clemens (aka Mark Twain), and one attributed to Fra Giovanni Giocondo but probably written by Ernest Temple Hargrove, take the listener on a journey from grief/death to hope/heaven. The musical language is unapologetically chromatic. Other than perhaps the most academic of composers these days, chromaticism has largely fallen into disuse. Although the vast majority of my music written since around 1998 is either tonal or more often modal, I occasionally return to a chromatically saturated musical language to express certain emotions through sounds that are alien to those musical languages. I did so in the present title with the intent of painting the three texts more poignantly. While most passages feature familiar-sounding triads and octaves, the melodies, harmonies and cadences sound unfamiliar. It is to be hoped that the listener will find the music both moving and engaging, challenging one to listen to these three songs in new ways.
—Stanley M. Hoffman, 11 September 2016,
fifteen years after 11 September 2001
TEXTS
1. Twilight: Solomon Ibn Gabriol (eleventh century, Hebrew, translation by me); 2. Goodbye: Samuel Clemens, a.k.a Mark Twain (1835–1910);
3. Peace: Attributed to Fra Giovanni Giocondo (1513), but probably written by Ernest Temple Hargrove (1870–1939).
Follow the next URL to view a high quality synthesized scrolling score music video for "Twilight, Goodbye, Peace" on my YouTube channel which I created to encourage live performances of this as of yet unperformed trilogy of songs.
"Twilight, Goodbye, Peace" is available for licensing from me, and for sale from Sheet Music Plus. Follow the next URL to visit the distributor's product page for this title.
Follow the next URL to view a watermarked PDF score of "Twilight, Goodbye, Peace" on my website.
Follow the next URL to here to listen to a synthesized rendition of "Twilight, Goodbye, Peace" on my website.
I hope you enjoy "Twilight, Goodbye, Peace". Thank you for your time and attention.
Stanley M. Hoffman, PhD
Link to my website: https://www.stanleymhoffman.com
Biography Published in Grove Music Online (The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Oxford University Press)
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