SETTING SAIL

SETTING SAIL
12 Songs for Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, or Tenor and Piano
on Poems by Emily Dickinson

Publisher
E. C. Schirmer Music Company

Catalog Number
9197

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Description
Throughout her career, composer Juliana Hall has periodically returned to the poetry of Emily Dickinson for inspiration in writing her songs. In SETTING SAIL she has collected a dozen short poems to set in song, but in contrast to many of her works there is no larger narrative at work from one song to the next; this is truly a collection, which may be performed in whole or as a group of songs a singer may wish to excerpt from the set. While these are smaller and more compact songs – the whole collection lasting just 18 minutes – each song in SETTING SAIL opens a little window into a bit of human nature and experience, with topics including the power of books to not only expand the mind but to free the spirit as well, the question of faith vs. science, charming and fantastical interactions with angels, the serious nature of the finality of earthly existence, a loving and compassionate discourse on our human experience living through the medium of time, and there are more…but each is full of Emily’s characteristic wit, playfulness, even humor, as well as her clear perceptions of the daily moments of awareness of our place in the world and the journey into eternity.

Text
1 – Setting Sail
2 – A little madness in the Spring
3 – If I can stop one heart from breaking
4 – A Book
5 – Suspense
6 – I died for beauty
7 – Down Time’s quaint stream
8 – The blunder is to estimate
9 – Faith is a Fine Invention
10 – I reason, Earth is short
11 – Look back on time with kindly eyes
12 – Playmates

Vocal Range
D 4  :  A-flat 5

Duration
18′ 00″

Vocal Tessitura
A 4  :  E 5

Year of Composition
2022

First Performance
Online
July 28, 2022

First Performers
Maggie Finnegan, soprano
Juliana Hall, piano
 

First Live Performance
October 25, 2023
Blair School of Music
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, Tennessee

First Live Performers
Maggie Finnegan, soprano
Jennifer McGuire, piano