Everpresent Lyrics

You know how that annoying song on the radio sticks in your mind for hours? The Stephen Paulus "Voices of Light" that we're performing beginning this evening is that kind of work. Paulus uses some very tricky rhythms, lots of meter changes, a measure of 3 followed by a measure of 2 followed by two measures of 5. The musicians reading here get the idea.

In one of the five movements, there are two measures the women sing that are a formula for disaster. It's written in 5/8 meter, eighth-note, eighth-note, eighth-rest, eighth-rest, eighth-note, followed by a 2/4 measure (I think) followed by the same 5/8 measure. HATE IT. HATE IT. George is pretty good about indicating where the ultimate eighth-note is, but I go into instant stress when I realize that passage is just ahead.

Because the Tucson Boys Chorus is singing with us on the Orff, we have to rehearse the Orff first in every rehearsal to let these little sweeties get home to bed. That means that we rehearse the Paulus after the break. So the last notes and rhythms in my head before I walk out of the Tucson Music Hall are "All things are too small to hold me." It's a very distinctive note pattern and rhythmic pattern. And it stays in my head *All * Night * Long*. I woke up this morning and went to fix my oatmeal and the tunes was still ricocheting inside my skull. Enough! I live for 5:00 Sunday afternoon when we'll be done with this set and Gail and I can go have dinner and a very large glass of wine (or even two) at Rio Café.

And just to give you your morning culture, here are the lyrics to that movement:

All things
are too small
to hold me,
I am so vast

In the Infinite
I reach
for the Uncreated

I have
touched it,
it undoes me
wider than wide

Everything else
is too narrow

You know this well,
you who are also there

P.S. I really do enjoy this piece. And it's fun having the composer in the audience for dress rehearsal, calling out, "you can have a bigger crescendo in those two measures." And he's got a couple of a capella passages that are very Gene Puerling (Singers Unlimited - a capella group from the 80s that I love). And it is only 25 minutes long. And Sunday's comin'. :-)