SATB, unaccompanied
A setting of Wallace Steven’s meditative poem based on two allusions: one from Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the other from the Bible. The poem is a soliloquy of Peter, who while attempting to play music; he muses on the power and meaning of music. The poet affirms his faith in the physical, concrete, immediate and the real: this partly justifies the carnal desire of the poem’s speaker. The poem is filled with musical illusions and its 4 section structure was intended to mirror the form of a symphony.
Duration: 11’