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Sonnets of Love and Chaos | STACY GARROP

STACY GARROP

a composer with a story to tell

a composer with a story to tell

Sonnets of Love and Chaos


I. What lips my lips have kissed
II. I will put chaos into fourteen lines

AUDIO
Volti; Robert Geary, conductor

DURATION
8’

INSTRUMENTATION
SATB (div.) a cappella

POET
Edna St. Vincent Millay

YEAR COMPOSED
2001

COMMISSIONER
Commissioned by the Dale Warland Singers

ORDERING SCORES
This work is published as a digital score with a performance license. The pricing is based on the number of singers in a choir:
  • $65: up to 20 singers
  • $130: 21-50 singers
  • $195: 51-79 singers
  • $260: 80+ singers
To order:
  • Click on the link to email Inkjar Publishing Company
  • Specify the number of singers and the name of your choir.
  • An invoice will be sent to you via PayPal.
  • Once payment is received, you will be emailed the licensed PDF within three business days (excluding weekends and holidays).
PROGRAM NOTES
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) was an American poet who produced a great body of work in her lifetime. Among her works are several books of poetry, essays, plays, an opera libretto, and over two hundred sonnets. The sonnets cover a vast range of topics including love, loss, beauty, music, death, war, science, legendary figures, and the end of humanity. Beautifully constructed, I find that many of Millay’s sonnets are well suited to be set to music. From 2000-2006, I set sixteen of her sonnets for a cappella choir, arranged into six sonnet sets.

In the first movement of Sonnets of Love and Chaos, Millay reminisces about her past loves, while in the second movement, she muses how to contain chaos within the fourteen lines of a sonnet's structure.
-S.G.

PERUSAL SCORE
Click here

TEXTS
I. What lips my lips have kissed
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, 
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain 
Under my head till morning; but the rain 
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh 
Upon the glass and listen for reply, 
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain 
For unremembered lads that not again 
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. 

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, 
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, 
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: 
I cannot say what loves have come and gone, 
I only know that summer sang in me 
A little while, that in me sings no more.

II. I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape
Flood, fire, and demon --- his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years of our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more nor less
Than something simple not yet understood;
I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him good.
  • HELIOS • 4’30” • 2 tpts/flugelhorns, hn, tbn, tba


    PROGRAM NOTES
    In Greek mythology, Helios was the god of the sun. His head wreathed in light, he daily drove a chariot drawn by four horses (in some tales, the horses are winged; in others, they are made of fire) across the sky. At the end of each day’s journey, he slept in a golden boat that carried him on the Okeanos River (a fresh water stream that encircled the flat earth) back to his rising place. The cyclic journey of Helios is depicted in this short work for brass quintet. The first half is fast-paced and very energetic, while the second half is slow and serene, representing day and night.
    -S.G.