Description

Written in collaboration with Timothy Takach.

Voicing: SATB a cappella

duration: 4:15

Level: 4

This lovely opening movement of This is How You Love examines the strong yet frail nature of love. And as sure as this love is, there’s an undercurrent of fear that it won’t last, that it will slip away. Musically, the choir sings blended together like a vocoder, with many parallel dissonances, creating a beautiful harmonic texture.

Text

I’ll love you until stars fall. Can this be
So sure, so lasting as my heart demands
Of one, whose slightest touch upon my hands
Is like the wind inside an aspen tree?

I am in doubt of this frail thing I hold
So sworn to constancy, and this is why:
Too often I have watched a burnt-blue sky
Where slipping stars spilled scarlet and grew cold.

– Florence Hynes Wilette, used with permission