SATB, a cappella
Beautiful sonorities abound in this setting which allows for sensitive nuance and dramatic sweep to express the well-known Song of Songs text.
Program Note
You have ravished my heart is a setting of verses 9-16 from Canticle 4 of the Song of Songs (Song of Solomon.) It is one of two settings for unaccompanied mixed choir from the Song of Songs, composed for Seattle Pro Musica. Both of the settings uses a different language – You have ravished my heart in English, and Yonati (O my dove) in Hebrew.
You have ravished my heart was premiered at the American Choral Director’s Association Northwest Division Conference in March, 2010, and won the 2011 Almquist Choral Composition Award.
Notes on preparation and performance
The two movements may be performed as a set, or individually.
Text
You have ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse;
you have ravished my heart with one look of your eyes,
with one chain of your necklace.
How fair is your love, my sister, my spouse,
how much better your love is, much better than wine;
and the smell of your ointments than all of the spices.
Your lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb –
honey and milk are under your tongue;
and the smell of your garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse;
a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire with spikenard, spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices.
A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.
Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south;
blow on my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.
Let my beloved come into this garden, and eat of the pleasant fruits.