She Will Hang the Night with Stars

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Sonya Leonore Stahl

Sonya Leonore Stahl (trans. Nikk Pilato)


Subtitle: An elegy for Oscar Wilde, the great Irish wit


General Info

Year: 1999 / 2018
Duration: c. 3:55
Difficulty: IV (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Nikk Pilato Music | Composer Website
Cost: Score and Parts - $50.00   |   Score Only - $5.00


Instrumentation

Full Score
Flute I-II
Oboe
English Horn
Bassoon
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II-III
B-flat Bass Clarinet
E-flat Alto Saxophone
B-flat Tenor Saxophone
E-flat Baritone Saxophone
B-flat Trumpet I-II
Horn in F I-II
Trombone
Euphonium
Tuba
String Bass
Timpani
Percussion, including:

  • Bass Drum
  • Glockenspiel
  • Marimba
  • Suspended Cymbal
  • Triangle
  • Vibraphone


Errata

None discovered thus far.


Program Notes

She Will Hang the Night with Stars (originally composed as an elegy for string orchestra) was inspired by a passage in Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis, a long letter written during Wilde’s two-year prison sentence for homosexuality (in the vernacular of the day, “gross indecency with men”). The letter details Wilde’s spiritual journey during his trials and incarceration, and provides a stark contrast to his earlier philosophy of hedonism. Upon his release, Wilde emigrated to France, and never returned to Ireland. In France he wrote the final work of his life, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a poem that detailed the harsh realities of prison life. Oscar Wilde died destitute in Paris, at the age of 46.

De Profundis concludes with the following paragraph:

Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.

- Program note by Nikk Pilato


Media


State Ratings

None discovered thus far.


Performances

To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project

University of Florida Symphonic Band (Jay Watkins, conductor) - 9 March 2023

  • University of Nebraska (Lincoln) Symphonic Band (Anthony Falcone, conductor) - 11 October 2022
  • Cypress Symphonic Band (Houston, Tx.) (Clancy Weeks, conductor) - 28 September 2019
  • Santa Fe College (Gainesville, Fla.) Wind Ensemble (Steve Bingham, conductor) – 9 April 2019
  • ISSMA District Honor Band (Valparaiso, Ind>) (Nikk Pilato, conductor) - 18 November 2018
  • Indiana State University (Terre Haute) Wind Symphony (Nikk Pilato, conductor) - 16 October 2018 ***Premiere Performance***


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