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About the Composer
Timothy C. Takach
Timothy C. Takach Publications
Something There Is Immortal
A challenging and rewarding piece. Epic in scope dramatic in content and execution, this piece could be the cornerstone of many thematic programs.
SSATBB
Whitman’s words are masterfully set to enhance the drama of the narrative. Takach moves through complementing colors and harmonic shifts, never losing the common threads of melody. The message to maintain an outlook filled with hope and love in the midst of darkness and strife is always a needed story in our world.
Composer’s Notes
When I wrote this piece, I hadn’t quite figured out the poem as I sat down to compose. As I spent more time with the words and the music I was writing, the meaning behind the poem revealed itself. When I work with singers on this piece, they often ask me, “What is more immortal than the stars?” I tell them that I think I know, but that it’s ultimately something they have to figure out for themselves. What do you think?
– Timothy C. Takach
Text
On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.
Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky.
From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those burial clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.
Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour
the stars only in apparition,
Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again
another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery
and golden shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine
out again, they endure,
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring
pensive moons shall again shine.
Something there is,
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
Something that shall endure longer even than
lustrous Jupiter,
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
Something there is,
Something immortal.
-Walt Whitman (ad. TCT)
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