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The Arrow and the Song

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Year: 2016

For: SSSAAA or SSATB + alto solo

Duration: 4:00

Available from Oxford University Press for SSSAAA or SSATB + alto solo. The SSATB version is also available in the OUP collection ‘Breath of Song.‘

The original upper-voices version of this piece was commissioned by the Savridi Singers of Calgary and their director, Erica Phare-Bergh, in celebration of their 30th anniversary. This piece incorporates bird and wind sounds amidst a forward-moving, rhythmically floating texture. Text by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

In 2020, this piece was also arranged for SSATB + with alto solo for publication by Oxford University Press. This piece is now available exclusively through OUP in a collection edited by Sarah Quartel called ‘Breath of Song,’ or as a single octavo (for mixed choir or upper voices).

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View perusal score

Listen to the multi-tracked upper-voices version created at home by Laura

Listen to the SSATB + alto solo version recorded by the Oxford Choir & Bob Chilcott

 

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.