This is the sixth movement of a six-movement song cycle written for women's choir and soprano soloist. Each movement is a setting of a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The cycle as a whole outlines the journey of a woman going from a heartbreaking relationship to finding healing in the arms of God. The piece was co-conceived by choreographer, Amanda Brewster, and written for Skylight Dance Theater.
Music by Virginia Hart Pike
Awet Andemicael, Soprano
The Skylight Singers
Conducted by Kamel Boutros
Piano: Grace Chandarlapaty
Violin: Heather Bixler
Cello: Leo Soeda
Lyrics
Perplexed Music
Experience, like a pale musician, holds
A dulcimer of patience in his hand,
Whence harmonies, we cannot understand,
Of God’s will in his worlds, the strain unfolds
In sad-perplexed minors: deathly colds
Fall on us while we hear, and countermand
Our sanguine heart back from the fancy-land
With nightingales in visionary wolds.
We murmur ‘Where is any certain tune
Or measured music in such notes as these?’
But angels, leaning from the golden seat,
Are not so minded; their fine ear hath won
The issue of completed cadences,
And, smiling down the stars, they whisper –
SWEET.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning