6. John Muir suite (a cantata of 4 numbers)

See/Hear/Download: PDF     MIDI (43 KB)     MP3 (9 MB)     Sibelius 5

Text: Four well-known quotes from the prose of John Muir:

I. N’ascensione madregala: “Climb the mountains, and get their glad tidings....”

II. Nature her galliard: “Everything is flowing, going somewere... / “How lavish is nature...”

III. Vespers: “The evening flames with purple and gold...”

IV. Grand canon: “This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere...”

(Full quotations may be found on the last page of the .pdf file.)

Musicians: SATB chorus, violin*, & flute* [*or equivalent organ stops]

Length: 2:42 + 2:04 + 2:44 + 2:30 = 10 minutes.

Style: Renaissance.

Program notes: John Muir was effectively engaged in his own time as the prime advocate for appreciation and preservation of wilderness. But in his outdoor aspect as a wandering sadhu, he developed a consciousness of "deep time" which is measured in sequoias, ice ages, and even orogenies. Instead of setting his words in a contemporary style (e.g., Brahms, Verdi, or ragtime), I have emphasized the eternal part of his message by using our earliest secular models, those of the Renaissance. Here are a madrigal, a galliard, a vespers anthem, and a canon, which outline one glorious mountain day: morning ascent, afternoon in an alpine meadow, sunset, and philosophising by the campfire.