Can someone help identify this piece for me?

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Ishq
Posts: 2
Joined: 25 Aug 2009 03:52

Can someone help identify this piece for me?

Post by Ishq »

So we learned this song in my high school choir, I loved it back then and now that I'm composing on my own, I remembered it and was thinking that it would be great to get a look at the score...but all I can remember are bits and pieces of the lyrics, and a few chords here and there! "Googling" the lyrics that I know has yielded nothing. Perhaps somebody here knows? A few lines:

"There is sweet (there is sweet) music there, and the cool and soothing calm that I seek..."

"There the dust of life's despair is washed with every care, away and forgotten, a lost memory..."

For some reason Samuel Barber's name comes to mind...but maybe not. It is definitely a contemporary piece, I'd like to say 20th century, in fact. Slow, winding, contemplative....these are some words I might ascribe to the musical flow. Can anyone help? I'd like to get to the bottom of this!
DaveF
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Location: Abergavenny, Gwent, UK

Re: Can someone help identify this piece for me?

Post by DaveF »

Although the text differs from yours after the opening words, the one that comes immediately to mind is Elgar's setting of Tennyson's There is sweet music (Op.53 no.1). Have a look at the full text at http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_text ... xtId=15694.
Ishq
Posts: 2
Joined: 25 Aug 2009 03:52

Re: Can someone help identify this piece for me?

Post by Ishq »

Back from the dead! :D No, that was not the song :( And as of mid-2013, I still don't know the name of this song! And it's such a nice one too. Mr. Wagner, if you're out there do give a holler! :mrgreen:
carlos
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Location: São Paulo, Brasil

Re: Can someone help identify this piece for me?

Post by carlos »

Here's a contemporary composition with a similar title. Your description ("slow, winding, contemplative") fits it well, but not the lyrics, though :/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R5PirFRF7k

I just found a couple of other modern compositions on Youtube, but they all follow Lord Tennyson's lyrics.

Were "There is sweet music" the first few words of your song, or were they in the middle? Knowing how the text begins might help.
vaarky
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Re: Can someone help identify this piece for me?

Post by vaarky »

Before Carlos replied, I'd asked Helene Whitson (hwhitson at choralarchive.org). Here is her reply:

All depends on what you are looking for. The correct title of the original
poem is The Lotos Isles, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Amy Beach did a solo
setting of it for soprano and keyboard under that title. The Lyric Chorus
performed it in our Amy Beach concert of Spring 1997.

I don't recognize a setting of those words as listed in the question.

A number of composers have done settings of the Tennyson poem under the
title There Is Sweet Music Here. You can search Sheet Music Plus under that
title and see if any of the versions listed there would be what you want.
Sometimes there are recordings included with the composition listings.

You also can search Youtube under that title and see if any of the
performances are the version you want.
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