I Will Keep Still

Composed by Michael John Trotta
Voicing: SATB a cappella
Catalog number: AMP 0892
Price: $2.10

About the poet . . Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was a Bengali writer, painter, and musician perhaps best known for his poetry. In 1913, he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature for his work. Gitaniali (Song Offerings) is comprised of 103 English poems dealing with a metaphysical nature of union. The nineteenth poem in the collection, If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy silence, is used as the foundation of this choral work. The imagery highlights the path of interior reflection as offering solace to the disquietude of waiting for light in the midst of darkness.

If thou speakest not
I will fill my heart with thy silence
and endure it.
I will keep still
and wait like the night
with starry vigil
and its head bent low with patience.
The morning will surely come,
the darkness will vanish,
and thy voice pour down
in golden streams
breaking through the sky.
Then thy words will take wing
in songs from every one
of my birds' nests,
and thy melodies
will break forth
in flowers in all
my forest groves.

From Gitanjali
Translated into English by the Author (1913)

recording performed by eChoir
Dayton, Ohio
Drew Collins, conductor

Click here to see a sample.

Click here to listen to a recording (MP3).



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