Student Composition Recitals

Movements

A Few Miles Above
Lonely Rooms
The Fever

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Performer(s)

Caleb Peterson, tenor
Nate Spanos, piano

Recital Date

4-27-2015

Academic Year

2014-2015

Instrumentation

Voice and piano

Duration

3:39

Program Notes

These three art songs are settings of excerpts from William Wordsworth's famous poem, "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey." I hope you enjoy this new music!

A Few Miles Above

This song opens with large polychords (two separate diatonic chords stacked on top of each other) and sweeping runs. I wrote these to create a grand, expansive sound, symbolizing the breathtaking view of a vast landscape from high on a mountaintop. Throughout the rest of the song I tried to tone paint frequently. For instance, I used some unusual chords, including a minor dominant, to illustrate the "five long winters." I also wrote a rolled chord to illustrate the "waters rolling from their mountain springs." The vocal melody is intended to complement the lyrical description of the landscape. I also directed the vocalist to whisper to accentuate the word "seclusion." Overall, I really enjoyed using these different techniques to compose my first art song.

Lonely Rooms

This song is a bit slower and much more gloomy than the first. It is in a minor mode and I used several extended tertian chords to support the melody with thicker colors. I utilized Romantic chord progressions and chromaticism to set the mood for the text, which describes Wordsworth's reminiscences of the rural landscape.

The Fever

With this song, I played with concept of keeping the accompaniment tonal, but never fully establishing one key. It mostly stays within E-flat major, but also hints at B-flat major. Parallel fourths are also prominent in the accompaniment, giving it a somewhat dissonant sound. The rhythm is more lively than in the first two songs, including some dotted rhythms in the melody. My goal was to use the mixture of these elements to symbolize the "fever of the world."

Composition recital spring 15.pdf (220 kB)
Recital Program

Copyright

© 2015 Joshua Drake. All Rights Reserved

Keywords

Cedarville, music, composition

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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