Caroline Adelaide Shaw | M u s i c k » Pedestrial Light

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Entr'acte
for string quartet

Allemande
for 8 voices

Sarabande
for 8 voices

Courante
for 8 voices

Passacaglia
for 8 voices

Punctum
for string quartet

By and By
for string quartet & solo singer

in manus tuas
for solo cello

Pedestrial Light
for soprano, violin & piano

Pedestrial Light
for soprano, violin & piano
alt version for soprano, violin, harpsichord & bass viol
22′

excerpts:

I. intimations

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II. Cantico delle creature

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III. to recall sky

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Abigail Lennox, soprano
Caroline Shaw, violin
Trevor Gureckis, piano

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Pedestrial Light, written in 2007, is a three-part piece centered around the rich Cantico delle creature by Francesco d’Assisi (1226).

The title of the work comes from a line of Wordsworth’s Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood which refers to a memory of everything being “apparell’d in celestial light” (sung in part one). The second part is a full setting of the Cantico delle creature, a beautiful poem, one of the first recorded in Italian, in the Umbrian dialect, which threads praise to the Creator through different elements in nature. The third part, “to recall sky”, is simple and austere – with the singer speaking an excerpt from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.

I wrote this work as a kind of hymn to the solitary pedestrian experience, and as a vaguely political appeal to protect and appreciate what remains of our natural environment.

TEXT

I. intimations
William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream
---The earth, and every common sight,
-----To me did seem
---Apparell'd in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream

II. Cantico delle creature
S. Francesco d'Assisi, 1226

Altissimu, onnipotente bon Signore, Tue so' le laude, la gloria e l'honore et onne benedictione. Ad Te solo, Altissimo, se konfano, et nullu homo ène dignu te mentovare.

Laudato sie, mi' Signore cum tucte le Tue creature, spetialmente messor lo frate Sole, lo qual è iorno, et allumeni noi per lui. Et ellu è bellu e radiante cum grande splendore: de Te, Altissimo, porta significatione.

Laudato si', mi Signore, per sora Luna e le stelle: in celu l'ài formate clarite et pretiose et belle.

Laudato si', mi' Signore, per frate Vento et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo, per lo quale, a le Tue creature dài sustentamento.

Laudato si', mi' Signore, per sor Aqua, la quale è multo utile et humile et pretiosa et casta.

Laudato si', mi Signore, per frate Focu, per lo quale ennallumini la nocte: et ello è bello et iocundo et robustoso et forte.

Laudato si', mi' Signore, per sora nostra matre Terra, la quale ne sustenta et governa, et produce diversi fructi con coloriti flori et herba.

Laudato si', mi Signore, per quelli che perdonano per lo Tuo amore et sostengono infirmitate et tribulatione. Beati quelli ke 'l sosterranno in pace, ka da Te, Altissimo, sirano incoronati.

Laudato si' mi Signore, per sora nostra Morte corporale, da la quale nullu homo vivente po' skappare: guai a quelli ke morrano ne le peccata mortali; beati quelli ke trovarà ne le Tue sanctissime voluntati, ka la morte secunda no 'l farrà male.

Laudate et benedicete mi Signore et rengratiate e serviateli cum grande humilitate.

III. to recall sky
Rainer Maria Rilke [ Letters to a Young Poet ](translation: M.D. Herter Norton)

» I have thought how quiet you must be in your lonely fort among the empty hills, upon which those big southerly winds precipitate themselves as though they would devour them in great pieces. The stillness must be immense in which such sounds and movements have room.

And when one thinks that to it all the presence of the far-off sea comes chiming in as well, perhaps as the inmost tone in that prehistoric harmony. Then one can only wish for you that you are confidently and patiently letting that lofty solitude work upon you which is no more stricken out of your life.

May I, when again, when I have the city's crush and tangled noise-skein and furor of its traffic wrapped around me.

Alone, may I, above that thick confusion, recall sky. »

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