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Timothy C. Takach
Timothy C. Takach Publications
Paper Cranes (from “Where Beauty Comes From”)
Expressive, melodic vocal lines have an underpinning of strong piano writing. An exploration of wishes – dreamed and granted.
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Where Beauty Comes From
TBB, piano
Written with text inspired by patients and the Children’s Hospital, this piece is appropriate for male choirs of all ages. Clear text stress, mostly homophonic writing with minimal independent entrances, and some divisi in the bass line make this a great choice for a choir moving beyond 2-part writing, but it also provides enough depth in musicality for a more experienced group.
Composer’s Notes
In 2010, poet Julia Klatt Singer and I spent time talking with some of the patients at the Children’s Hospital of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Our project was to listen to their words and stories, and create music from their experiences. The text of “Paper Cranes” has a couple different meanings. While we were there, the hospital was under construction, so each window of the patients’ rooms offered a view of the cranes nearby. But there were also origami paper cranes hanging from the ceiling in many rooms, made by the patients. The presence of these cranes hints at the Japanese legend which states that anyone who folds one thousand paper cranes is grated a wish.
– Timothy C. Takach
Text
Wings made of paper, wishes made of air
One sits by the window, so quiet
The world out there
Made of buses, made of clouds
Made of steel, made of cranes.
One sits by the window
Listens to the dreams
we dream, hears the hum
of each machine,
knows that
If you could see
the way my mind moves
You’d hear the music in me.
In my head, an endless number,
A bear with no name.
Some things will always be here
Do not need a name or end
Some things we’ll never
Ever understand.
Blue’s my favorite color
Ruby and Rose, my favorite names
The day after we’re born
Is when our real life begins.
How does the crane carry
my wish on its wings?
How does the star rising,
hold my handprint
In its blaze?
A thousand cranes tied together,
left hanging cloud to cloud,
until tattered by the breeze,
and when they are broken
our wish begins.
– Julia Klatt Singer (2010)
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