COMPOSER

The Vast Hour for 18 musicians (2020)


Instrumentation: 
1.1.1.2 saxophones.1, 1.1.1.0, drum kit, piano (or keyboard), 2 sopranos, string quintet (2 Violins, Viola, Violoncello, Contrabass)

Duration: 9’

Commissioned by Albany Symphony Orchestra and premiered by David Alan Miller and Dogs of Desire



Text:
The Vast Hour
Genevieve Taggard
From For Eager Lovers

All essences of sweetness from the white
Warm day go up in vapor, when the dark
Comes down. Ascends the tune of meadow-lark,
Ascends the noon-time smell of grass, when night
Takes sunlight from the world, and gives it ease.
Mysterious wings have brushed the air; and light
Float all the ghosts of sense and sound and sight;
The silent hive is echoing the bees.
So stir my thoughts at this slow, solemn time.
Now only is there certainty for me
When all the day's distilled and understood.
Now light meets darkness: now my tendrils climb
In this vast hour, up the living tree,
Where gloom foregathers, and the stern winds brood.







The Vast Hour, performed by Dogs of Desire: