related works
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir and large ensemble
Scoring:
sopr GK4 ensemble
From Russian Sacred Poetry : for mixed choir / Georgs Pelecis
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK
I See His Blood Upon the Rose : for mixed choir / Georgs Pelecis; text Joseph Plunkett
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK
composition
Fever : for mixed choir, 2005 / poem by Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), Gerard Beljon
Other authors:
Stevens, Wallace
(Text writer/Librettist)
Beljon, Gerard
(Composer)
Description:
Program note (English): [Première: 1 december 2005 - Philharmonie, Haarlem - Nederlands Kamerkoor o.l.v. Klaas Stok] - The poetry of Wallace Stevens (who made a living as a lawyer) has two remarkable sides; on the one hand dark, anxious, philosophical, on the other side a youthful, colorful and strongly rhythmical. These aspects frequently come together in one poem. For composer this poetry offers a number of starting points. On his two choral works set to the words of Wallace Stevens Beljon says: 'In 'The cry of the Peacocks' Stevens' fear for the night, and actually his fear for death is fully expressed. The crying of the peacocks is the core sound for me, which represents that fear. For this reason I have chosen a stanza from the poem as a title for my work. The poem has an anxious, imminent tone typical to the time in which Stevens lived, in which a fear dominated for war and economic crisis. 'Fever' is a reference to the American blues/jazz music from the south, with as contrast, the traditional
choral music from the north. In a feverish dream the poet waits for these two very different types of music to eventually coincide. In deeper sense one could say that in the poem the desire for harmony is reflected, the harmony in which everything in life becomes pleasurable and will cure the poet. Stevens suffered his entire life from a deep fear for an enormous vacuum, the meaninglessness, already seen in his early work 'The Cry of the Peacocks', and now in a work from a later period. In this piece I took the word 'unison' from the poem in a musical sense: although set over several octaves, a number of stanzas are sung in unison. - GERARD BELJON