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Timothy C. Takach
Timothy C. Takach Publications
In Flanders Fields (TTBB) (Takach)
Careful text setting, elegant writing, beautifully paced.
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In Flanders Fields (Takach)
TB, piano (opt. trumpet and horn)
This tender setting of the famous John McCrae poem, an excerpt from Takach’s oratorio “We, the Unknown,” can be performed either with piano or with solo trumpet and horn. Takach shows his usual extreme care for the text, and the writing is accessible: homophony throughout and the stepwise motion is in contrast with elegant intervalic skips. An instant favorite for the commissioning choir, “In Flanders Fields” will find a place in your heart.
Composer’s Notes
It was a challenge to set McCrae’s famous poem for the larger work We, the Unknown. First of all, it’s such a well-known text, and has been set so many times over the years. Second of all, when I was in Cantus I sang Christine Donkin’s setting a number of times, and her setting is gorgeous and perfect. How could I compete with that?
There’s something that is equally proud and melancholy about this poem. The motives from the horn and trumpet have shades of triumph, but there’s also an unsettled feeling in those major seconds throughout. The singers’ lines are lyrical, and are filled with a great sense of yearning. They are asking us to finish what they began, for even though they die, they cannot rest until the conflict has been resolved.
– Timothy C. Takach (2019)
Text
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
– John McCrae, “In Flanders Fields”
$2.15 per licensed PDF
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