THE HOLY SONNETS OF JOHN DONNE

THE HOLY SONNETS OF JOHN DONNE
9 Songs for Tenor and Piano
on Sonnets by John Donne

Publisher
E. C. Schirmer Music Company

Catalog Number
8578

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Description
THE HOLY SONNETS OF JOHN DONNE is a famous and wonderful setting by one of my very favorite composers, Benjamin Britten, so it was an exciting idea when I received an email from tenor Joel Burcham (who commissioned these songs in 2013 and gave their premiere on a faculty concert at the University of Oklahoma), asking that I write a companion set of songs setting the same nine sonnets earlier set by Britten. At that time I hadn’t heard the Britten songs, so I wrote my own cycle of “Holy Sonnets” before hearing any other settings by any other composers, following my usual process of allowing only the text I’m setting at the moment to speak to me. My cycle offers a different approach to the sonnets than Britten’s, but it is a direct and heartfelt response to these very intense and personal expressions of Donne, written by him in times of deep reflection and spiritual challenge.

Text
1 – Oh my blacke Soule!
2 – Batter my heart
3 – O might those sighes and teares
4 – Oh, to vex me
5 – What if this present
6 – Since she whom I lov’d
7 – At the round earths imagin’d corners
8 – Thou hast made me
9 – Death be not proud

Vocal Range C 4 : A 5	Duration 35′ 00″
Vocal Tessitura A 4 : E 5

Commission Joel Burcham	First Performance November 15, 2014 University of Oklahoma Norman, Oklahoma
Year of Composition 2013	First Performers Joel Burcham, tenor Elizabeth Avery, piano