OF THAT SO SWEET IMPRISONMENT

OF THAT SO SWEET IMPRISONMENT
7 Songs for Contralto and Piano
on Poems by James Joyce

Publisher
E. C. Schirmer Music Company

Catalog Number
8769

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Description
Juliana Hall wrote her song cycle “Of That So Sweet Imprisonment” for mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, for whom Hall had expressed a desire to write a piece. Blythe accepted Hall’s proposal, and her request was that Hall write a song cycle for contralto voice.

The seven poems Hall set in “Of That So Sweet Imprisonment” were chosen from James Joyce’s early book of poems, “Chamber Music” (Elkin Mathews, London) published in 1907. The poems are arranged in a narrative arc that takes the listener from the presence of love in nature (Strings in the Earth and Air), to the human feeling of emptiness when love is not present (Winds of May), to a description exulting in the joys of human love (Of That So Sweet Imprisonment), to expression of human love such as kissing (In the Dark Pine-Wood), to love’s transformation of a girl into a woman through love making (Bid Adieu), to the feelings of contentment in the early morning after making love (At That Hour When All Things Have Repose), and finally a call for the lovers to go to a special place where they may remain together in love (O Cool is the Valley).

Text
1 – Strings in the Earth and Air
2 – Winds of May
3 – Of That So Sweet Imprisonment
4 – In the Dark Pine-Wood
5 – Bid Adieu
6 – At That Hour When All Things Have Repose
7 – O Cool is the Valley

Vocal Range
A 3  :  E 5

Duration
20′ 00″

Vocal Tessitura
C 4  :  C 5

Year of Composition
2017

First Performance
January 19, 2019
Sparks & Wiry Cries
songSLAM Festival
DiMenna Center for Classical Music
New York, New York

First Performers
Stephanie Blythe, contralto
Alan Louis Smith, piano