SKU: PE.EP68578

ISBN 9790300759630. English.

Of Time and Passing (2016) is a cycle of three choral songs written specifically for the London-based ensemble, VOCES8, taking into consideration their versatilityand ability to beautifully intone a range of vocal colors with precision and grace.

The first song, I. Life, sets my translation of the poem A Vida by Brazilian poet Olavo Bilac (1865-1918), a poet I discovered while studying Brazilian Portuguese at the University of Michigan. I was drawn both to the simplicity of the text and to the possibilities of teasing out dual contrasting moods. In the beginning and end, this song explores a texture that is very much alive: wave-like contours, throbbing sounds, and plenty of flowing movement. Rising eighth-note motives in particular emphasize the fleetingness of life. But in the middle of the song, the listener is given a slowed-down atmosphere to savor life's beauty.

II. To Everything a Season capitalizes on VOCES8's ability to effectively interpret popular genres a cappella. This ancient text is taken from Ecclesiastes (dated around 300 B.C.) but I set it to a modern, rhythmically-regular and percussive pop-style idiom. Since popular music in whatever era is designed
to appeal to a specific ?present time?, it is by its very nature ephemeral, and therefore seemed an apt metaphor to evoke the transitory nature of seasons.

III. Into Your Hands, confines the writing into no more than four parts, often with octave unisons.This creates a more direct and word-focused setting in which the Psalmist?s urgent words are placed at the forefront. Largely homophonic, this song is at times chorale-like, at times madrigal-like,
finall y relinquishing it?s tension into peaceful rest, proclaiming ?You have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God??

- Daniel Knaggs

SKU: CA.990500

ISBN 9790007087005. Language: Latin.

Kurt Suttner, editor of the carus novus series, has written as follows in the foreword to the printed edition of Schanderl's setting of Psalm 90: The seven verses of Psalm 90 contrast the eternity of God with the transitoriness of man.This contrast is symbolized in the composition by the majestic, slow-moving basic pulse of the music, and by rhythmically taut, concise, polyphonic melodic figures. This contrast exactly matches the words which speak either of the permanence of God (Domine - Lord) or the transitory nature of man (convertimini filii hominum - return ye children of man - mane sicut herba - like the grass).