About the Music
I Have Loved the Stars (2014) uses excerpted text from the poem “The Old Astronomer” by 19th Century English poet, Sarah Williams, “Sadie” (1841–1868). Using a sentence that is attributed—in the poem—to Galileo, “I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night,” the piece is structured in three parts based on the evening star rise. The music opens with rich, wordless chords, the soft blues of dusk, finding only the word “love” amid nonsensical syllables. In the second section, we being to hear the stars rise with improvisatory vocal sound clusters representing the hazy appearance of the milky way and pointillistic stars created both in voice parts and in the pizzicato (plucked) accompanying strings. High scale segments and whistle-like harmonics create shooting stars as this improvisatory section gets denser and denser, revealing the multitude of stars. In the final portion of the composition, the words are at last revealed with a childlike melody and rocking rhythm. This section starts simply and gets more complex, as we are awed by the beauty and mystery of the night sky.
“I Have Loved the Stars” was premiered in 2014 by Gerard Schwarz, conductor, and the University of Wyoming Collegiate Chorale. This work is dedicated to The Never Alone Foundation, an international adoption support foundation whose beautiful stars will never cease to shine. For more information about the Never Alone Foundation, please go to http://laurelsmessage.org/
Duration: 5:40
For: Trumpet in C and piano
Download sample score >