{"id":1053,"date":"2018-01-18T21:19:20","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T21:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spindrift.com\/store\/?post_type=product&p=1053"},"modified":"2025-03-03T18:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T18:11:08","slug":"quaker-heart-chorus","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.spindrift.com\/store\/product\/quaker-heart-chorus\/","title":{"rendered":"Songs from a Quaker Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Download a Preview PDF<\/h2>\n\n\n\tDownload “Songs from a Quaker Heart, SATB and piano, preview”\tpjm-SongsfromQuakerHeart-preview.pdf\t\t– Downloaded 9404 times\t\t– 788.99 KB<\/small>\n<\/a>\n\n

Printing is disabled for Preview scores.<\/p>\n

Notes<\/h2>\n

\u201cSongs from a Quaker Heart\u201d began with my discovery of Marian Kaplun Shapiro\u2019s poetry. When I started working with Barry Singer, Director of the Arlington-Belmont Chamber Singers, on this commission, I looked for material by a local poet. I found Marian\u2019s poetry book \u201cPlayers in the Dream, Dreamers in the Play\u201d in the local authors collection at Cary Library in Lexington, MA. These short poems lent themselves to developing musical textures reflecting mood as well as the text. Quiet, leaves, seasons \u2014 these recurring motifs led me to select five of her poems. Two are from the book, and the others are from her unpublished manuscripts.<\/p>\n

Some of the poems are very short<\/i>. #2\u00a0\u201cLife, In Conjunction\u201d has eight different words, repeated. I used this to create a pattern and gave each of the eight words a different pitch.<\/p>\n

Another short poem is #4 \u201cSpring Sunlight\u201d. Marian has encapsulated the idea of growth\/decay in just a few words. But each line is so short! and the contrasts need to confront each other. It took me a while to find a musical treatment lasting longer than 30 seconds. My setting dwells on each pair of contrasts, developing a mood and texture for each pair. Then there\u2019s a shape-shifting in the last two lines as the rhythm changes and the action spills into the last line, which I highlight with a surprise chord change.<\/p>\n

The poem #3 \u201cLeaves\u201d feels both nostalgic about the passing of the seasons and angry about the disruptions of bad weather. As the text proceeds from nostalgia into frustration, I begin to set the words as a spoken chant, instead of a nostalgic song.<\/p>\n

In #1 \u201cQuaker Meeting\u201d the key thought of the poem is quiet serenity. I gave it a long introduction to establish the quiet mood. In addition to the poem\u2019s words, Marian provided a paragraph of text about the awesome experience of a Quaker meeting. This is what the singers whisper. My challenge was shaping a musical climax, in the middle of the quiet, for the brief, transcendent line of \u201clike the spirit, free to come in\u201d.<\/p>\n

Finally, #5 \u201cHouse Oratorio\u201d is just plain fun. Singing appliances simply needed to be set to music. Each appliance gets a particular melody, layered in an ever-changing texture. Are they talking to each other, or just the soundscape of a house?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Download a Preview PDF Printing is disabled for Preview scores. Notes \u201cSongs from a Quaker Heart\u201d began with my discovery of Marian Kaplun Shapiro\u2019s poetry. When I started working with Barry Singer, Director of the Arlington-Belmont Chamber Singers, on this commission, I looked for material by a local poet. I found Marian\u2019s poetry book \u201cPlayers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1061,"template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[16],"product_tag":[63,39,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-1053","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-chorus","7":"product_tag-chorus","8":"product_tag-piano","9":"product_tag-satb","10":"composer-marshall","12":"first","13":"instock","14":"shipping-taxable","15":"purchasable","16":"product-type-variable","17":"has-default-attributes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spindrift.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spindrift.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spindrift.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spindrift.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spindrift.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spindrift.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spindrift.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spindrift.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}