ME = Moderately Easy
M = Medium
MD = Moderately Difficult
D = Difficult
Shelter This Candle (Edna St. Vincent Millay)
SATB choir, oboe, horn, harp and cello - 15 minutes - MDSEA-080-00 - $12.00/full score
SEA-080-01 - $7.00/choral score
SEA-080-02 - $10.00/set of parts
Commissioned by VOICES Chorale, Music Director Lyn Ransom, in celebration of its 20th Anniversary.
"Following was the stunning Shelter this Candle, composed in 2007 by Elizabeth Alexander... Using text from Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem "To the Wife of a Sick Friend," Alexander managed to sculpt light in sound, evoking the troubled winds of fate that threaten the flickering candle of life. The piece begins with the instrumental quartet, building steadily with each instrument weaving in and out of the texture until suddenly, they are joined by the whispering chorus characterized as the threatening wind. The Chorale's rock-steady technique and vocal unity made their entrance in this piece and the subsequent clear-toned vocalization some of the most exquisite moments of the concert." - KC Metropolis (Review of Kansas City Chorale performance, 3/6/2011)
"[Shelter This Candle] yokes a somber Edna St. Vincent Millay poem to gentle, ethereal music that leaves one feeling inspired and peaceful. - Kansas City Star
This atmospheric and evocative work creates a world of dazzling light, utter darkness, desolate solitude and joyful delight. Sounds of wind and falling tears are woven throughout, with haunting whispers and vocal effects. The piece opens and closes with tender repetitions of the phrase “shelter this candle,” Edna St. Vincent Millay’s reminder to protect the glimmers of hope during darker times.
The composer writes: "Millay's dark but candlelit cavern is nothing less than our own beautiful but imperfect world, where our losses and hardships may leave us overwhelmed by grief or despair. During times like these, leaving the cave is not an option. But sheltering our communal candle is."
The chamber ensemble plays a major role in this piece, with a significant introduction and dramatic interludes.
Shelter This Candle - Score
To The Wife Of a Sick Friend
Shelter this candle from the wind.
Hold it steady. In its light
The cave wherein we wander lost
Glitters with frosty stalactite,
Blossoms with mineral rose and lotus,
Sparkles with crystal moon and star,
Till a man would rather be lost than found:
We have forgotten where we are.
Shelter this candle. Shrewdly blowing
Down the cave from a secret door
Enters our only foe, the wind.
Hold it steady. Lest we stand,
Each in a sudden, separate dark,
The hot wax spattered upon your hand,
The smoking wick in my nostrils strong,
The inner eyelid red and green
For a moment yet with moons and roses,—
Then the unmitigated dark.
Alone, alone in a terrible place,
In utter dark without a face,
With only the dripping of the water on the stone,
And the sound of your tears, and the taste of my own.
From The Buck in The Woods, © 1928, 1955. All rights reserved.
Used by permission of Elizabeth Barnett, literary executor for the Millay Society.
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