By Diana Rosenblum | For Three Female Voices and Violoncello | 5′
Title: Like As the Waves
Composer: Diana Rosenblum
Text by: William Shakespeare
Year Composed: 2014
Instrumentation: For Three Female Voices (SSA) and Violoncello
Duration: 5′
Format: 1x Full Score
Page Size: Letter
Catalog Number: OM0701
Format: Performance Set (3x Full Score & 1 Part)
Page Size: Letter
Catalog Number: OM0701SP
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Inspired by the intrinsic properties of keys as a way to illuminate the essence of abstract qualities and Shakespeare’s words, Diana Rosenblum crafted a piece in which the female voices exist in an ethereal choir. They contrast with the cellist, who occupies a space between earthliness and spirituality. At times the cello abets the voices; then it resists.
From the composer:
In Sonnet 60, Shakespeare mentions light, beauty, nature’s truth, hope and worth, whereas Time, represented as a proper noun, is personified as the primary agent responsible for our inevitable deterioration and ultimate expiration. Indeed, Time is two-faced, at once bestower and revoker of youthful vibrancy, and the other named qualities must either succumb to or sublimely elude (through art) his brutality.
…the foremost aim of the piece — to exalt the lyricism and poignancy of Shakespeare’s text.
Sonnet 60
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,
Crooked eclipses ‘gainst his glory fight,
And Time, that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
Commission/Dedication: Composed for the 2014 Oxingale Music Composition Competition.
Premiere: First performed February 20, 2015 in Herkimer, New York by Matt Haimovitz, cello, and Voice Trio.
OXINGALE MUSIC 