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Earth Voices

Publisher: Rhythmic Trident Music Publishing

Catalogue Number: RTCA-036

Year: 2015

For: SA with Piano

Duration: 2:30

Earth Voices is available for SSA or SAB. The SSA version can be performed as a unison piece or in up to three parts (the end has a three part divisi).

Commissioned by “Choralfest”: a festival of English School Board choirs in Ottawa. This piece uses text from a poem by Canadian poet Bliss Carman, and offers many teachable moments not just musically, but in connection with other subjects in the school curriculum as well. This is often performed as a set with “The Sun is Mine.” It’s also available SAB, tailored to the needs of the high-school level changing voice.

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Category:

Cantiamo Girls Choir

Bliss Carmen; excerpts from “Earth Voices”

I heard the spring wind whisper
Above the brushwood fire,
"The world is made forever
Of transport and desire.

"I am the breath of being,
The primal urge of things;
I am the whirl of star dust,
I am the lift of wings.

I heard the spring light whisper
Above the dancing stream,
"The world is made forever
In likeness of a dream.

"I tint the dawn with crimson,
I tinge the sea with blue;
My track is in the desert,
My trail is in the dew.

I heard the spring rain murmur
Above the roadside flower,
"The world is made forever
In melody and power.

"I plow the untilled upland,
I ripe the seeding grass,
And fill the leafy forest
With music as I pass.

Then Earth to them made answer,
As with a slow refrain
Born of the blended voices
Of wind and sun and rain,
"This is the law of being
That links the threefold chain:
The life we give to beauty
Returns to us again."