Vespers
Subtitle: Walking in Beauty
General Info
Year: 2022
Duration: c. 40:00
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Susan Botti
Cost: Score and Parts - Unknown
Movements
1. Invocation
2. Forget the Wars (Stesichoros – 6thc BC – trans. Brooks Haxton)
3. Les Distances (Philippe Jaccottet)
4. Brief Dream (Samuel Beckett)
5. Pied Beauty (Gerard Manly Hopkins)
Instrumentation
Full Score
Flute I-II-III-IV (doubling Piccolo and Alto Flute)
Oboe I-II (doubling English Horn)
Bassoon (doubling Contrabassoon)
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II-III (doubling E-flat Soprano Clarinet)
B-flat Bass Clarinet
B-flat Soprano Saxophone
E-flat Alto Saxophone
B-flat Tenor Saxophone
E-flat Baritone Saxophone
B-flat Trumpet I-II-III
Horn in F I-II-III-IV
Trombone I-II-III
Bass Trombone
Euphonium I-II
Tuba I-II
String Bass I-II
Percussion I-II-III-IV
(percussion detail desired)
Choir
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
Walking at dusk is something I have done since childhood. I am full of memories of walking – alone, and with others, on mountains, through cities, through woods, and along waterways. Walking tunes me to the pulses and sounds of my environment. Aligning myself with the rhythm of the natural world is something I crave, and in fact, I find it to be a form of healing. A form of prayer.
The texts I have chosen to set are interrelated by their imagery, their movement, and their sounds. Walk in Beauty is a Navajo (Diné) traditional prayer. I have not “set” this prayer musically, rather it is a source of inspiration -- a meditation I carry with me with gratitude.
For my father, with whom I loved to walk.
Vespers (walking in beauty) was commissioned by an international consortium of wind ensembles led by Glen Adsit and the Hartt School.
- Program Note by composer
Media
None discovered thus far.
State Ratings
None discovered thus far.
Performances
To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project The Hartt Wind Ensemble (West Hartford, Conn.) (Glen Adsit, conductor; Hartt Voices and Voices of Concinnity) - 25 March 2023
- University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) Symphony Band (Eugene Rogers, conductor) – 18 January 2023
- University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) Symphony Band (Michael Haithcock, conductor) – 17 November 2022 *Premiere Performance*
Works for Winds by This Composer
- Cosmosis (2005)
- Eye of the Hawk (2015)
- Sull’ala (2013)
- Terra Cruda (2011)
- Vespers (2022)
Resources
- Susan Botti website Accessed 6 September 2017