By Luna Pearl Woolf | For Soprano and Cello | 7′

Format: Performance Set: Full Score + 1 Part
Page Size: Letter
Catalog Number: OM0105

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From the composer:

Epithalamion, a wedding blessing, was written to be performed during a ceremony held in the music room of Holyoke Mass.’s beautiful Wistariahurst Museum.  Richard Crashaw’s text calls for a long, sweet, and most importantly, harmonious marriage.

Epithalamion

Long may this happy heaven-tied band
Exercise its most holy art,
Keeping her heart within his hand,
Keeping his hand upon her heart;
Except from her eyes
___Feel he no charms
Find she no joy
___But in his arms;
May each maintain a well-fledged nest
Of winged loves in either’s breast;
Be each of them a mutual sacrifice
Of either’s eyes.

May their whole life a sweet song prove
Set to two well composed parts
By music’s noblest master, Love,
Played on the strings of both their hearts;
Whose mutual sound
___May ever meet
In a just round
___Not short but sweet;
Long may heaven listen to the song
And think it short though it be long
Oh, prove’t a well-set song indeed, which shows
Sweetest in the close.

by Richard Crashaw

Commission/Dedication: To Jessica Grant, September 6, 1998.
Premiere: First performed September 6, 1998 at the Wistariahurst Museum, Holyoke, MA, by Luna Pearl Woolf and Matt Haimovitz.
Recording: This work is recorded on Oxingale Records’ album Lemons Descending, available on Spotify or Apple Music.