MITCHELL DIETZ | COMPOSER
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Romance (sketch, 2011)
for SSA chorus

SCORE
These first couple minutes of Romance were written during my final semester at Luther College. Honestly, I decided on composition a bit late in my college career, so it wasn't until I was a senior that I started to dabble in writing for chorus. For my first sketch I decided on a text by one of my favorite authors, Edgar Allan Poe:

Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet
Hath been -- a most familiar bird --
Taught me my alphabet to say --
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild wood I did lie,
A child -- with a most knowing eye.

Of late, eternal Condor years
So shake the very Heaven on high
With tumult as they thunder by,
I have no time for idle cares
Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings --
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while away -- forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.


Poe has been an inspiration for me ever since I was a kid. One day I found an old book of his poems in our house, sitting on our stair steps waiting to be tossed. To this day I have no idea where it came from. I picked it up and discovered "The Raven," and that pretty much did it for me. I rescued the book (though I'm not sure where it is now...) and kept reading his poems, until I eventually got my hands on a copy of his complete tales and poems. It's my brother's...he'll probably want that back some day.

This poem is a beautiful little gem. I think it stands out from some of his other, lengthier poems in both diction and tone. This has a sweetness and an airiness to it, and it doesn't seem as dark as his other works. It's simple and quite lovely.

To capture that airy, sweet, tender quality, I drew upon the forces of Luther College's Collegiate Chorale -- the female half, specifically. I didn't go all out with dynamics or rhythm, keeping the setting gentle and melodic. And the choir brought out the beauty in a fantastic way.

Unfortunately, I only made it through the first stanza when setting this text. I would absolutely love to finish it and hear it performed.  Until then, it'll be waiting here in its simple beauty.
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