I am pleased to present the new recording of Portland Vocal Consort’s April performance of Song of the Mountains, my SATB setting of text by American naturalist John Muir. You may listen on my website: www.gregbartholomew.com/mountainsindex.html
The webpage also includes the complete text and performance history as well links to download a free perusal score and to purchase scores.
Song of the Mountains was commissioned for the Combined Choirs of St. Joseph’s School, Seattle, directed by Rick Boyle, who premiered the piece at Benaroya Hall’s Nordstrom Recital Hall in Seattle on May 6, 2004. The piece was revised in 2007 and the premiere of the revised score was given on November 16, 2007, by the Queens College Chorus, Cindy Bell conducting, at the Aaron Copland School of Music in New York.
Driven by a refreshing text of American naturalist John Muir, Bartholomew has created an accessible work that flows easily through both key and meter changes, and features expressive, lyric melodies contrasted by exciting rhythmic drive. Song of the Mountains is almost cantata-like, or through-composed, in that each line of Muir’s text receives equal and interesting interpretation. Occasional use of the triplet rhythm creates both a relaxing effect (“grasses cease waving”) and driving sense of forward motion (“Vibrating!”). Effective use of dynamics and interweaving of choral parts make for each section having a musical life of its own. –Cindy Bell, conductor
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